The Dark Final Days of SITU

Did you know that the vast files and library of a great cryptozoological and Fortean organization were raped clean in their final days?

If you read closely through the long list of cryptozoology books being offered for sale by Robert Girard, you will note that some are marked with “S. I. T. U.” in them. A few have “ex S.I.T.U. library, their stamp on title page,” reports Girard.

Of course, these books he lists, no doubt, came legally into the hands of some collectors who have emptied their stock with Girard, but it merely reminded me of the sad ending that did occurr at S.I.T.U.

For those who don’t know, “S. I. T. U” stands for Ivan T. Sanderson’s organization that he founded in the wake of his short-lived Ivan T. Sanderson Foundation.

The mainstream information on this longer-lasting Sanderson group can be found at such sites as Answers.com, under their “The Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained” entry:

What this posting leaves out is the deep interest Sanderson had, first and foremost, in cryptozoology, and wished to pursue through SITU. Sanderson coined the word “cryptozoology,” was trained as a zoologist, was an animal collector as a teen in the jungles of the world, and definitely saw himself as a cryptozoologist. For such a site to concentrate the examples in the paranormal, unfortunately, merely reinforces the folklore that Sanderson was a crackpot, when the true was entirely different.

One fault of Sanderson’s, however, may have been his trusting of others. As he was getting sicker and sicker with cancer, after Mark A. Hall’s year of being a director of SITU, the end times of SITU in Blairstown, New Jersey, were not happy ones. More and more people, unscreened, would end up coming to visit the Sandersons. Many would “look” at the files, and walk away with materials. By the end, the rumors making the rounds were that people “in station wagons were backing up to the concrete bunker” and loading books and files into their vehicles. The “borrowed” files and books never were returned.

Ivan Sanderson’s concrete building that he had built on his land specifically for his decades of materials was legendary. It was filled to overflowing with files and his priceless library. By the time of his death, the collection of SITU was, more or less, gone.

After Ivan’s death, his wife would gather what was left of his personal papers that had been kept in safer locations, and donated them to the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadephia.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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