Fortean Evolution
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 28th, 2006
Regarding the ongoing Mysterious America, which goes out of print Friday, here’s a review of it from Bob Rickard, editor of Fortean Times:
MYSTERIOUS AMERICA
Loren Coleman
Paraview Press, New York; 2001.
334pp, index, illus, appendix.
A fortean’s view of forteana. Essential reading.
This book was first published in 1983; at that time is was the most important and detailed snapshot of forteana in modern America. In this revised edition, veteran fortean investigator and FT columnist Loren Coleman brings the picture up to date. Included here are classic reports on the Dover Demon, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Phantom Clowns, the Iceman carcase, Alligators in the Sewers, Mystery Kangaroos, Phantom Panthers, various Bigfoots, and the Jersey Devil – all mandatory reading for forteans – along with a comprehensive bibliography and some notable strange places listed by state.
A lot has happened in the last 15 years – lots of investigations, panics, scares, new topics, reinvestigation of old cases, etc – but on the big issues there is surprisingly little advance. It’s clear from many of the chapters that the core topic – be it, UFOs, Bigfoot, lake monsters, or encounters with strange entities – is still as mysterious and elusive as it was when Coleman first began to pursue his fortean interests in 1960. But what we are presented with here is almost as important as a breakthrough, and that is a window on the development and changes in the thinking of the investigators themselves.
“When Jerry Clark and I wrote our first two books* in the mid-1970s, we suggested UFOs and monsters were psychic projections of a collective unconscious, literal thought forms which took on a solid state existence…” write Coleman. In the often heated debates of the 1980s and 1990s, the scope for explanation was widened to include associations with poltergeist activity, time and dimensional intrusions, the resurgence of ancient ‘spirits of place’ and the ‘psychosocial’ aspect that, generally, divides American research opinion from its European counterpart.
None of these, of course, are conducive to the scientific method or part of any ‘explanation’ that would be acceptable to an orthodox scientist, but to be accused of being ‘unscientific’ is the cross forteans have to bear. Our energies form a different type of discipline – one that operates on the border of intellectual chaos – that is more conducive to the consideration of all possibilities without prejudging the phenomena. It is pre-scientific (something that Thomas Kuhn understood) and not anti-scientific (which its unthinking critics deem it to be). In this field, Coleman is a smooth operator; as you travel with him across America – speaking to witnesses, gathering data, delving into history, archaeology, anthropology, indeed, anything that might shed some light on the meaning of the events – you can’t help but gain a respect for someone working so closely at the coalface of weirdness for so long … and who still appears sane and considerate.
Coleman obviously cares about strange phenomena but also about people to whom it has happened; people whose lives, for reasons that are often beyond their conscious understanding, have been turned upside-down. In academic life, he has been a family counsellor , and that has clearly helped. He says his passion for fortean mysteries has not dimmed in four decades and closes with words that go against the media-cultured expectation for instant understanding: “There is nothing wrong with not having all of the answers at this stage of the game.” That’s a pretty good approximation to fortean wisdom that will guide you through the next 20 years.
Bob Rickard.
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Of course, I began a cryptozoologist in 1960 and remain one today. But, needless to say, I am aware of how different parts of the journey have enhanced me and limited me and surprised me. In Mysterious America, I give a peek into that trek, just as I have here, on this blog for the last several months. The travel along any path is, bottomline, very personal. I appreciate that and hope my sharing assists others to find enjoyment in theirs too.
*Footnote: These two books have just been reprinted, with a new introduction, as The Unidentified & Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman, NY: Anomalist Books, 2006.
If you are interested in obtaining any of the last hardbound copies of Mysterious America that I have, please see the posting here.
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.
Loren,
I just watched a program on the History Channel that had you in it, talking about a Yeti expedition in which you went to a person’s estate/ranch, in Texas I think, where materials had been found in boxes, including hair and fecal matter which upon testing came back as belonging to an unknown primate. The owner of this ranch had apparently funded the expedition and died in a plane crash in 1962 (I think), I am wondering if you could elaborate or point me in the direction of a book you may have written detailing this finding. I am curious also as to why I had never heard of this before? Thanks!