Customer Reviews

Strange but True: Mysterious and Bizarre People, Who Were They and Where Did They Go

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I could not put down Strange But True once I started to read. I have read a lot of mystery/paranormal books, but this one is the best and most unusual one I've perused so far. I enjoyed the chapter on Spring-Heeled Jack and the mysterious Count St Germain, who kept popping up throughout history in various guises. The book is a real gem for lovers of mystery.

Strange But True is a potpourri of bite-sized stories about (Surprise!) strange people and/or events. I am a "Strangeness Buff", and even though I have a TON of books that run along the same lines, there was a lot here that was new to me, and a lot that makes you want to read more; The chapters on Springheel Jack and The Tunguska Alien were especially interesting. Slemen's writing is compelling, and his style makes for fun reading.

The drawback was that the book has no bibliography, so it's impossible to do any further digging for information, and there's no telling where Slemen got his facts from. As such, that always left me feeling a tad doubtful about some of the more unbelieveable stuff.....It is a fun book, though, and fans of the Unexplained will have a good time.

I have over a hundred books on Forteana, the Occult, and Bermuda-Triangle type of mysteries, but I have never read anything like Thomas Slemen's book, Strange But True: Mysterious People. I don't know how he does it but Slemen draws you into the sinister and bizarre tales of his book, and it leaves you with an appetite for more of his tales. I have all of his English books as I live in London, and a friend in New York is so into Slemen, she has asked me to mail the books I have to her. Slemen's website is worth checking out: tomslemen.mainpage.net
I would wholeheartedly recommend the book to all lovers of mysteries and the unknown.

I really enjoyed this book and have reread it several times now. It has to be one of the most thought provoking set of stories ever written. The range of topics, both in the variety of subject and the historical timespan, is also a good point of the book.
However, some of the facts in some of the stories are questionable especially in light of the lack of bibliography. For instance, the story concerning the explosion in Siberia in 1908 was factual in regards to time, place and who/when it was investigated. Whether or not a supernatural/alien creature haunted the explosion site, as this book claims, is highly questionable. Many video documentaries on the Siberian explosion have not mentioned anything about such a creature and since there is no bibliography to this book it is impossible to find where these claims originated. It must be admitted that this makes the authors version highly suspect.
At any rate, the book is very entertaining and is highly recommended.

Rather than being "strange but true", this book should be titled "strange but edited in places to make it look more mysterious than it is."

It's an interesting read, don't get me wrong. But many of the "facts" presented in the book are edited to make it appear as if they have actual relevance.

Take, for example, Mother Shipton's "end of the world" prediction. According to the book, she predicted the end of the world in 2061. In actuality, her prediction was for 1861. Presenting the actual facts might have hurt the assumptions presented, however, so the date was edited.

Better to just give the facts as they actually are and let the reader choose and discard for herself what she chooses to believe. Editing information in this fashion simply lends credence to the belief that everything in the book is quackery and false.

Whenever I read this book (have read it several times), I can't put it down. However, from the first paragraph in the introduction, it scares the crap out of me! Every time I hear the tiniest sound I jump! I remember sitting outside and reading this book and being so scared I had to go in and hide! SO creepy to think these people may actually exist, and even if this isn't completely true, it's still scary! I know a lot of people wonder where this guy got his information from, but in the days of the WWW, all you have to do is Google the subjects and find reputable sources to draw your own conclusions from. Definitely worth buying!

These short stories or articles give food for thought for those of us who are interested in the mysteries of the occult. Could this possibly be? Could it not? How far can the mind really stretch? How circuitous is the path of the soul? A case in point was the piece about the woman who had survived the Titanic while encased in ice, or had she? Why did the medical doctors who surrounded her perfectly preserved body step back when she opened her eyes? Was she just trying to assure her soul that she was "found"?

I really enjoyed reading this book. I could read it for days on end. It really does keep your attention and really gets you to want to turn the page and find out what else happened that Mr. Slemen is going to explain. It is a great collection of people and their bizarre mysteries. But I also wonder at how true these things are. At times I felt as if I were reading a novel instead of a book that was designed to explain to me the mysteries of these people. Not that I minded, but it also does make one wonder how true the things Mr. Slemen puts in his book are. Many times I wondered if those things had actually happened. Also some people should have been left out of the book. On some occations, I would read a bout a person, really intrigued, and then his mystery or solution to the problem would be totally hokey and wouldn't classify with the other explanations. Such as the explnation of Spring Heeled Jack as an alien was totally out of league with such explanations as Edgar Allan Poe actually killing the "Cigar Girl". The book also takes a lot of assumptions with assuming the reader believes in aliens and polturgeists. But over all the book was very entertaining minus those minute details. If you like true stories about fascinating people, this is for you.

I usually read books simular to this one. This book was entertaining with its tales and stimulating with the real facts it gave. St. Germain, EA Poe, Vampires....very interesting.