Customer Reviews

Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ghost lights, Devil Monkeys, Momo, The Jersey Devil. It's all here. Our old friend Loren Coleman has cataloged and classified as many strange occurrences as anyone. A must have for anyone interested in the unexplained right here in their own backyards. My copy is already dog-eared from lunch break perusals and the lists at the index end of the book help you plan a paranormal adventure if you so desire. I will definitely keep it handy as I take my film making gear around the South! Thanks Loren, for compiling the mysterious spaces of America.Eyes In The Dark: The Sasquatch Experience

Not a collection of UFO/Bigfoot sightings & accounts, as suggested in its summaries. Actually, a kind of travalogue, of allegedly paranormal sites. The concept seems to be: "if you're on vacation, go visit Bigfoot!"
Problem is, most of the events in the book allegedly took place 20-30 years ago. It's more like: "go visit a place where Bigfoot may or may not have taken a dump years before your birth." And others are paved over. Or have a subdivision built on top of them (so sayth Google Maps). Go stare at a parking lot...great way to spend your vacation. NOT!
BTW-- I looked on Google Maps. One of the alleged paranormal event areas now has a fried chicken stand on it. Bigfoot and the Alien Greys LOVE the Colonel's secret spices....<hee-hee> :D

The Hipster gives it a Big Thumbs DOWN!

I've read a lot of books on this subject, including Bigfoot, Momo, Nessie, and Grassman, but this one takes the cake. As a person who has witnessed Bigfoot I must say I consider Loren Coleman and other cryptozoologists to be highly credible and wonderful people as they bring to light many amazing zoological discoveries that have yet to be verified by the scientific community. Coleman writes well and does a good job bringing the reality of elusive creatures to life in a professional and readable manner that is both informative and enjoyable.

Many of the alleged sightings he presents in Mysterious America are some of the most important creatures sightings reported in the last century or so. These reports are very consistent in terms of the creatures' appearances, especially when it comes to Bigfoot.

When I first read this book it reminded me of my own sightings I had while out of work due to an industrial accident. I was homebound and on heavy prescription pain medications. I couldn't drive or walk down the street, so all I could do was watch television and stare out of the window. After getting the finger from my neighbors during the day, I started watching at night. One night I spotted this thing that resembled a gorilla running across the yard. Then I smelled a smell like rotten eggs. The creature gave a long, blood-curdling scream and disappeared into the woods. The thing was seven feet tall and covered in dark brown hair.

Later that year, I was awakened one night by the sound of someone laughing like Woody Woodpecker. Hahaha-HAA-ha, hahaha-HAA-ha, Huhuhuhuhuhu! The laugh sounded so much like Woody that I thought someone had left the television on all night. I looked out the window above the foot of my bed and saw a hairy apelike creature with a cone-shaped head and glowing red eyes staring at me... the time was around midnight and my window is a good eight feet off the ground. The creature ducked down and disappeared. As it did I heard a sound like "Pfthuuuuut!" and a substance that resembled vegetable soup mixed with chocolate pudding splattered all over the window. Once again I detected the notorious rotten egg odor. I got out of bed and ran to the window when suddenly a cinder block flew through it, shattering the glass and knocking me to the floor. Good thing I still had some pain medication left.

Anyone interested in Bigfoot and other unknowns would do well to read this book. It will open your eyes to the hidden world around you that science denies but is clearly real.

excellent service and a great book! read this as a teen and it still fascinates. terrific purchase. loren coleman is the man!

This is by far Loren Coleman's best that I have read. Covers a myriad of topics without skimping on the info. He doesn't just cover the common ones, either. Lesser known creatures are mentioned with a bunch of interesting information. There is more information than you could possibly want on out of place cat sightings (2 chapters) and I really enjoyed the author's wit and jokes! A really interesting and entertaining piece!

This book is in many ways an important study, after all, there is no end to unusual and outright anomalous encounters, and although many books have been written on these subjects, surprisingly little is of any lasting value. Coleman's book is among those that form essential cornerstones of any library of the unknown. Where else can we read about phantom clowns and phantom felines, terror kangaroos, the Dover Demon which he not only investigated, but coined the name - and a host of other, strange and othewordly creatures? Not only that, as there are many books out there with tall tales, Coleman is meticulous in his sourcing and referencing of any aspect. Moreover, he has investigated several of these incidents himself.

Being a researcher in these fields myself, I sense the years of work, study, research and on the spot investigations went into this book, and Coleman deserves accolades for an excellent study. The book is meticulous, well written, well researched and owing to his generous mentioning of sources, traceable.

I was especially intrigued by the phantom clown scare, as around the same time the Netherlands, Europe, experienced one. Which only strenghtens Coleman's chapter on the subject, since, as he writes, law enforcement authorities and others were not even aware that the Phantom Clown scare was a nationwide phenomenon, only having the data of what happened in their cities. How then, might we ask, does the uncomfortable fact fit in that another country also experienced something of a very similar nature at the same time? How do we deal with these, sometimes, transglobal phenomena?

It shows the strength of a researcher such as Coleman that he had his eyes wide open at the right time, and that he tried to make sense of a most puzzling phenomenon. To date as far as I am aware, the chapter in his book is the only study undertaken on the Phantom Clown phenomenon. Perhaps there's a thesis or paper somewhere in an obscure folklore publication; I have not seen it.

I know, though, that while we sit safe and warm in our comfortable apartments and homes, not only in America's outlands, but also in the dark hearts of its cities, strange creatures out of time and space are born. Creatures, that momentarily glide, jump, fly, slither or float in and out our daily existences. Frightened eyewitnesses recount their tales, puzzled journalists write articles. Names are being born to in time enter the lore of the folk, names like Momo, Champ, the Jersey Devil, the Dover Demon, the Baltimore Phantom, The Ghost of Paris, the Atlanta Iceman... Researchers like Coleman try to make sense of it.

It is there, that this book may be our guide; in the shadowy zone where this reality slowly merges with what lies beyond...

I'll confess I love reading purportedly true stories of cryptozoology and the paranormal, despite the fact I generally doubt the claims being set forth. Loren Coleman, the author of "Mysterious America," has a gift for presenting his case histories clearly and with a certain atmosphere that makes for entertaining reading, whether or not you give credence to his claims. The one thing you can believe without reservation is that "Mysterious America" is a fun book, sure to please those looking for a shiver and a taste of the mysterious.

A self-described Fortean cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman is generally regarded as one of the more plausible researchers in his field, for he seems ever ready to disbelieve and discount any and everything he reports. In truth, his subjects include the sorts of things you'd expect to find on the cover of The National Enquirer, and taken in the right spirit such material is generally entertaining. Unfortunately, Coleman can't write worth a damn.

Published in revised version in 2004, MYSTERIOUS AMERICA is very much like buckshot: it goes here, there, and everywhere in search of an interesting target. Now and then Coleman manages to find one, and when this occurs he actually writes of it quite well; his brief passages on the likes of Springheeled Jack and the Kelly-Hopkinsville case (presented here as Kelly's Little Men) are well told, and his more detailed renderings of "ghost clowns" and "the mad gasser" are quite fascinating. But these aside, Coleman spends a lot of time on mysterious kangaroos roaming the midwest, tiresome big foot accounts that have already been endlessly repeated, and lions and panthers that turn up in unexpected places. Such stories are the bulk of the book, and not only are they unteresting in and of themselves, they are written in a remarkably uninteresting way.

There are, as Shakespeare noted, more things in heaven and heaven than are dreamt of in our philosphies. But I doubt anyone will be convinced of it by MYSTERIOUS AMERICA, which is only mildly mysterious and passably interesting.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This book is filled with updates and how people who are so critical missed that fact is beyond me.

There is no secret the core book here is Loren Coleman's classic 1983 book, which has been out of print. It was revised, updated, and enhanced by 50% for a new generation. It is filled with new information, needless to say.

My son is a cryptozoology nut and had never read this particular book. He loves it and it has started his collection of cryptozoology books for his personal library.