More on Outer Edge Creatures
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 9th, 2012
Just to answer continuing questions about my first two books, The Unidentified and Creatures of the Outer Edge, with Jerome Clark, yes, they have been republished. And yes, they reflect our youthful theories, long ago revised or thrown overboard. But the reports, sightings, and some connections still ring true, decades later. Some have even written that “Clark and Coleman” set off the psychosocial ufological theorizing in Europe and the surviving zooform movement in the UK today, with our books and writings on such things as the tulpas, way back in the 1970s.
For example, the following was received from a 48 year old researcher in Scotland: “I bought the Creatures of the Outer Edge when I was a teenager. I still own that battered copy even today. I think the reason I devoured books like these in my early years is because of personal experiences. It gave a name to the phenomena that already existed. I now chase mystery cats all over the British Isles, and now run Big Cats in Britain. Yes all these early books helped to shape us, so its your fault Loren 
”
First appearing in 1975 and 1978, these two paperbacks were republished in 2006, as a special double edition with a new introduction. The Unidentified and Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman is a combined quality paperbound book from Anomalist Books.
The Unidentified has intriguing, limited, and marginal information on cryptozoology. Historically, Creatures of the Outer Edge is more significant, in terms of looking at strange critters at the time it was published. Creatures of the Outer Edge surveys the cryptozoologically bountiful decade of the 1970s (and, of course, related cases of the past) with accounts on Mothman, Owlmen, Thunderbirds, Phantom Panthers, Devil Dogs, Texas Big Birds, and, yes, of course, Bigfoot.
Some of the individually “named” local Bigfoot creatures first appeared in Creatures of the Outer Edge, including Momo (Missouri Monster), Lake Worth Monster, Murphysboro Mud Monster, the Enfield creature, El Reno Chicken Man, Noxie Monster, Navajo’s Skinwalkers, and Yukon’s Bushman. Creatures of the Outer Edge also introduced the now-iconic Dover Demon for the first time to the general public. The appendix is dedicated to “1977 – A Year Filled With Monsters.”
Table of Contents
Introduction to this Double Edition 1
Book One: The Unidentified
An Introductory Note 8
UFOland: Other Worlds and the Otherworld 9
Fairyland: The Magical Impulse 45
Voices from Heaven: The Religious Impulse 93
The Airships: The Technological Impulse 131
UFOs: The Mystery in the Machine 165
Paraufology: Understanding the Incomprehensible 225
Selected Bibliography 251
A Note on UFO and Fortean Publications 261
Index 263
Book Two: Creatures of the Outer Edge
Introduction 11
Chapter One: Mystery Animals 15
Chapter Two: The Bigfeet 28
Chapter Three: The Manimals 51
Chapter Four: Phantom Cats and Dogs 117
Chapter Five: Things with Wings 165
Chapter Six: Phantasms 195
Epilogue: A Year Filled with Monsters 208
Bibliography 228
To read part of the new introduction to Creatures of the Outer Edge and The Unidentified, see here.
The original cover of COTOE.
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.
I think it’s good to keep an open mind to the possibility that the Sasquatch and other unverified animals may be extra-terrestrials, but I think when people push the idea too far it may mislead others.
I need to add those to my collection…glad to hear they’re back around.
And I can echo the sentiments of the 48 year old researcher from Scotland…I was in my teens when I first came across Daniel Cohen’s Monsters, Giants and Little Men from Mars. I must have checked that out of the school library every other month (I don’t think too many other people did–I was probably the reason they kept it there in the first place). I was forever hooked–though it wasn’t until I had quite a library of Crypto books that I finally added that one–it definitely launched me, and springboarded me to Loren, Dinsdale, and a host of other crypto authors.