Product Description
THE MARYLAND BIGFOOT DIGEST is a comprehensive survey of creature sightings in the Free State. In this offering of extensive research, author Mark Opsasnick describes his indoctrination into the world of monsters, offers detailed coverage of such legendary beasts as the Sykesville Monster, the Harewood Park Monster, and the Harford County Bigfoot, and rounds out his work with an impressive roster of 300 alleged sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures in his home state of Maryland. Whether you ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Bigfoot in Maryland? Maybe!
Bigfoot isn't just for the Pacific Northwest anymore. This book chronicles bigfoot sightings in Maryland, some going back to the 19th Century. As a resident of the Free State, I found it fascinating. Some of the tales are wild and woolly -- and I remain skeptical on balance -- but I acknowledge that the author has done a great job pulling together info on sightings from all over the state.

Opsasnick clearly has affection for this topic and knows his way around the subject. The book is well written and engaging. If you are interested in bigfoot or Maryland folklore, this is the tome for you. ... Read more

Product Description
" The journalistic quest to identify the person who wore a 'Bigfoot Suit' in Roger Patterson's world-famous film has culminated in this highly informative and revealing investigation. Hopefully, now all the people who know the truth about Patterson's footage will come forward, and the scientific community will focus on other potential evidence when trying to determine whether the legendary creature is real or a popculture myth." -ROBERT C. KIVIAT (Network TV Executive Producer, WORLD'S GREATEST HOAXES: SECRETS FINALLY REVEALED and ALIEN AUTOPSY: FACT OR FICTION?)

"Greg Long's new book is long overduein a time of outrageous urban legends. It is both refreshing and affirming to encounter a serious book that reveals an 'actual' conspiracy of deliberate lies. Furthermore, THE MAKING OF BIGFOOT is that rare combination of investigative journalism and storytelling; it is simply a very good read. I recommend it for its gripping internal narrative based mostly on the strange life of one man - yet it weighs in against the larger legends that still swirl around the mythic hairy giant who haunts the wilderness of our minds." - KENNETH C. WYLIE, Ph.D. (Author of BIGFOOT: A PERSONAL INQUIRY INTO A PHENOMENON)

"Greg Long has written a rare book: one that celebrates the true mysteries of our lives while remaining faithful to the importance of rigorous examination and critical thinking. Thos book is a must-read for those who seek to understand the anatomy of our burgeoning modern myths. It will stand as a cautionary tale for all of us. We are each responsible for the way our tales unfold. Like Roger Patterson and the film he created, we are joined at the chest to our stories. If one becomes corrupt, the other is sure to die also." -DAWN PRINCE-HUGHES, Ph.D. (Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, Western Washington University, Bellingham; Author of THE ARCHETYPE OF THE APE-MAN and GORILLAS AMONG US: A PRIMATE ETHNOGRAPHER'S BOOK OF DAYS)

"Regardless of your opinion about the subject of Bigfoot, this book cannot be ignored! This is a work that is truly universal and appeals automatically to everyone. This book is a real eye opener, and it is refreshing to see that the lost art of good old investigative journalism is finally back. This should set an example for courses on critical thinking and investigative journalism around the world. Long's persistence has paid off; the scientific community and the general public should be thankful, as well as the Bigfoot community." -MICHAELA KOCIS (Investigative Journalist, Broadcaster, ExpresRadio, Mlada Fronta DNES, Czech Republic) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (79)

A Walk on the Wildside
Gregg Long's book, The Making of Bigfoot, may be one of the most extensively reviewed books on Amazon. This is a measure of the emotional reaction it provokes in people. This in turn is a measure of the Bigfoot phenomena itself. You either believe or disbelieve with no quarter given. To the believers this is a well researched, thoughtful book. Mr. Long conducts a lot of interviews with people who others should have interviewed many years ago. Couple this with his analysis of the film itself an it puts the final nail in the films coffin. To the disbeliever his treatment of Roger Patterson amounts to character assassination. His evidence is circumstantial based upon the thirty year old memories of a group of people who frequently contradict each other. Some of the other reviewers have gone into great detail as to the flaws of this evidence and I see no purpose in rehashing all of it here.To give one small example, in one place the `gorilla' suit is said to be made of horse hide and to be in three pieces while another whole chapter is devoted to the story of how a three piece suit was purchased from a leading manufacturer.

In the end what have we learned about the possibility of the film being a hoax?Mr. Long has conducted a great many interviews and has tried to be objective in his evaluation of their statements but in the end comes off as rather guileless. He ends up accepting most of what he is told even when they contradict each other. His treatment of Roger Patterson almost raises the thought that he has some personal animosity toward him. Roger Paterson may have been a publicity-seeking, self-styled Bigfoot hunter but he was also an artist, singer, and rodeo rider. A complex man it seems that those people who new him best liked him and he comes off as a remarkable person who impressed everyone who knew him, whether for good or ill.Patterson's much vaunted arrest record consisted of renting a movie camera and not returning it on time.It is true that showing that someone has had shady dealings in his past raises the bar but it is still not proof.Roger Paterson could have been the biggest liar, the most scheming conniving man who ever stood in shoe leather and, for just this one time in his life, could have been telling the truth. And Bob Heironimus could be as honest as ole Abe himself and for just this one time he could have been lying. Did Pattersonhave the creative ability and the sheer moxie to pull off a bigfoot hoax, yes he did.Did he hope to profit from his work with Bigfoot, of course. That a man believes in an idea and makes money off of it isn't proof of dishonesty.In the end it proves nothing. No John Green was right, in the end it all boils down to the film itself.

This Mr. Longtries to do but the results are less than compelling. Much of his analysis is based upon how the figure seen differs from what he thinks it should look like, but to have a preconceived notion of what a creature unknown to science should look like comes off ashubris.Since we are dealing with an unknown morphologysaying it is fake because it doesn't fit our expectations is suspect. At best the analysis of the film comes off a amateurish, for example he seems to find it suspicious that it looks like other published accounts or that a hominoid would walk like a human.He does raise some questions and provides food for thought making it easy for those who wish to disbelieve to follow him to his conclusions. But Occam's Razor is a guideline not a proof. In the end he doesn't solve the problem that all bigfoot researchers face. And that is that it is always possible for an active imagination to devise alternate scenarios. I have always felt that the validity of such research can be gauged by the frequency of such words as `perhaps', `maybe', and `could have been'. For the more often one sees those words the more certain one is that they are dealing with speculation. The reason that there has not been any consensus about these sightings is, I believe, to be found in the nature of reality itself and so in that sense this book was futile from the beginning. If I am right then the answer lies not in more research but in quantum theory andI believe that I canprove thisby the use of simple logic.But since my ideas on this subject tend to provoke outrage themselves and since I have given them full treatment in my book THE GOBLIN UNIVERSE: Speculations on the Nature of Reality I will not get on my soapbox here. In the end the best that can be said is that while this book gives grist to both sides of the mill it doesn't settle the issue in the manner that Mr. Long had hoped but if you are interested in an area of bigfoot research that has not been very fully treated in the past the book is certainly worth a look.

Biased Without Objectivity
I happened upon a used copy of this book and purchased it having had an interest in the bigfoot phenomenon since I was a kid.Over the years I've vacillated regarding the authenticity of the subject in the Patterson/Gimlin footage and was not convinced one way or the other prior to reading this book.I'm still not.I hadn't heard of this book when I found it but assumed at a glance that it would be a critical and objective look at the Patterson/Gimlin film.

After having sat on the bookshelf for a year or more I plucked it from my bigfoot library and started reading.It was immediately apparent that this was to be no objective look at the footage but rather a hit piece; a character assassination with an agenda and a pre-determined conclusion.The prejudice held by the author is in no way veiled and his disdain for Roger Patterson is clear throughout book.These aside, the book is a painfully long read.The author could have accomplished his goal in a volume a fraction the size of this.The book is, in no small part, comprised of transcribed interviews conducted by the author of friends, family, acquaintances, business associates, etc. of Roger Patterson as well as others providing information about film processing and so on.These interviews, from a nostalgic perspective, are really the only interesting aspect of the book.The author's introspection during and following these interviews is arbitrary and motivated and add, to the point of tedium, to the length of book and predictably lead the author to interpretations that, to this reader, are quite dubious.

Add to it the writer's need to narrate and describe, ad nauseam, the dark of night, light of day, daylight fading, weather (hot, cold, patter of rain, dark and stormy night), the sound of a soda can or briefcase opening, sipping, munching, tape recorder whirring, the drive to or from and so on like the chief character in a cheesy detective novel and it really gets tough to slog through.Unfortunately, I suffer from some sort of undiagnosed syndrome or disorder that will not let me put a book away until it's read to the end.Could I have quit, I would not have gotten to the last chapter of this book which compelled me to write this review rather than shrug the book off to time and money (even used) wasted.

The author is convinced and unremittingly asserts that Patterson, because he was shady, opportunistic, didn't pay his bills and was at the same time also possessed of a keen eye for detail, great artistic and creative potential and industrious ability, could very well have created a bigfoot suit and that Patterson very probably hoaxed the film.Then comes along an acquaintance of Patterson's that claims to have worn a three piece suit of Patterson's design and manufacture composed largely of smelly horsehide and the deal is sealed.The author claims victory. He's discredited Roger Patterson, slain and buried bigfoot, and freed the world for all time from the yoke of hoax.

Hang on a tick, there's still chapter 24 to go. Will this thing ever end?Not just yet.It seems that after the author has so doggedly touted Patterson's ability to create a convincing bigfoot suit with which to perpetrate his hoax, another confessor emerges.This confessor, among his occupations, makes costumes and was making gorilla suits back when the Patterson/Gimlin film was shot.With an extraordinary memory, the costume maker recounts selling a gorilla suit to Roger Patterson (by name) decades prior and offering advice on how to modify it.Then he instantly recognized the suit he sold to Patterson when he saw on television the same shaky footage we've all seen though a completely different mask was purportedly added to the suit and it had been otherwise modified.Further, in this final chapter, the author admits that Patterson wouldn't have made a bigfoot suit because Patterson hated work, didn't have the patience for it and... preferred living on handouts?Huh?Examples of Patterson's patience in craftsmanship highlighted earlier in the book are thrown right out the window along with any credibility the bigfoot slayer may have had.Additionally, beside inconsistencies in descriptions between what Patterson's alleged bigfoot-suit-wearing acquaintance gave and the construction of the gorilla suit described in detail by the maker, the author made the mistake of providing a photo of "the exact same gorilla suit Roger Patterson bought"; an off-the-shelf gorilla suit which differs so ridiculously from whatever is in the Patterson/Gimlin footage as to be laughable.Nonetheless, the bigfoot slayer let slip from his hands the headstone of bigfoot to thunder into place, pats himself on the back and the world is once again spinning in greased grooves.

In reality, I doubt that any of us will ever know with absolute certainty what was in that footage.Bob Gimlin is the one surviving person that even the author cannot deny was there when the footage was taken.Gimlin refused an interview with the author but did, at the same time, refute the presence of anyone but Patterson and Gimlin when the footage was taken.It's worth noting the author then attempted to discredit Gimlin.Short of a confession such as the surgeon's regarding the famous Nessie photo and a bigfoot suit which can be somehow authenticated, this question will probably never be settled.The author, unfortunately and quite contrary to the credit he shamelessly grants himself, settled nothing.Likewise, unless a living or dead specimen is produced with features identical to the subject in the film, the film and its photographer will never be vindicated.

A final observation regarding this book is that the author seems to equate the Patterson/Gimlin footage with the bigfoot phenomenon; or at least did not go to any length to separate the two.He seems to infer that the subject in the film and the phenomenon are one and the same.Discredit the film footage and all other evidence loses relevancy or potency.The author's irreverence to what he calls "Bigfooters" and bigfoot researchers seems to support this as it makes them appear credulous; though there are a number of them who are credentialed professionals who, unlike the author, have approached the phenomenon and studied the multi faceted evidence (including the Patterson/Gimlin footage) by applying their scientific disciplines.They may not be correct but I'd place far more stock in their investigative and interpretive prowess than that of the author.

I can usually find some redeeming qualities in most things but the unabashed bias and vitriol exhibited in the book, the lack of objectivity, the inconsistency, the plodding pace and the lack of credibility the worst of these engender in an expose' earn this book low marks.

Excellent journalism; a whodunit of Bigfootery
The reviews of this book are strikingly bimodal. Many of the one star reviews are written by recognizable names in the bigfoot community, some of whom have a financial stake in preserving the idea that the 1967 Patterson Gimlin film shows a real non-human creature, rather than a man in a suit. Internet sites dedicated to the reality of bigfoot publicized this book and encouraged their members to pan the book. So many, if not most, of the reviews, are "political" in nature. In fact, many of the reviewers, apparently, never even read the book.

The book is actually very interesting, entertaining and is almost a page turner, as Greg Long tells the story of his several-year investigation of the making of the Patterson Gimlin film. Long and his wife gradually gained access to a number of acquaintances of Patterson and Gimlin, and obtained quite a striking impression of Patterson as a man who became obsessed with getting rich with the Bigfoot fad, and who had few scruples about how to do it; documentary evidence is provided. Eventually, Long finds the man who claims to have been the man who wore the suit in the film, and the man who claims to have made the suit. I won't spoil the story, but I can say that Long cannot tie up every loose end in the story, in large degree because of the passage of time, the death of Patterson, and the refusal by Gimlin, Patterson's widow, and some others, to cooperate. But given that, Long makes a good case that Patterson himself was correct when he said that, in terms of credibility, he was the worst man on earth to have made this film. I recommend this book to journalists, students, general readers, animal lovers, bigfoot devotees, or true crime readers.

Author is Genuinely Unpleasant
Other reviewers have pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of this book, so I would like say something about its tone.

I don't know Greg Long as a person, but judging by his writing he is sanctimonious, sour, ungrateful and insulting to his sources. After finishing the book I wasn't sure how I felt about Bigfoot, but I sure knew how I felt about the author.

horrible
I'm open-minded to hearing alternate theories for the existence of bigfoot, but this book is a borefest that lacks anything really new to add to the Patterson film controvesy.Most of the book covers the author's journey to discredit the Patterson film in painstaking and mundane detail.He verbosely describes how the soda he sipped tastes and the slurping sounds it makes as he interviews his subjects; how the mattress in his hotel room feels as he beds down for the night;I was waiting for a chronology of when he passed gas - good grief!Simply, a little too much Greg, not enough substance.

I'm all for contrarian investigative journalism, but the author clearly had an agenda when writing this book - his leading questions of Bob Heironomous and others were shameless.476 pages and the keystone to the author's case is some legal documents showing Roger Patterson didn't pay his $3 dry cleaning bill and the story of some crazy aunt of Heironomous's who allegedly saw the bigfoot suit.Everything in this volume is circumstantial and hearsay.It's disappointing how Long ignores the obvious conflicts of interest his interview subjects possess.Take Phillip Morris, magician and owner of Morris Costumes, the largest wholesaler of costumes in the United States, who claims he recognized "his gorilla suit" when he saw the Patterson film aired in a newscast in 1967.

Avoid this one...yuck! ... Read more

Product Description
This is the Second Printing of the Florida House- Mission One (the First Printing under the name- Unexplained Unexpected Vampires) This edition includes two additional short stories, besides Behemoth which was included in the First Printing.

The Florida House- Mission One

The Florida House is part of an organization that searches for creatures that hide in the night. Shunned by the others in the organization (because of their unusual hobbies and/or attitudes) they must prove themselves worthy of their positioning while searching for vampires and other monsters that hunt man.

Mr. Matt Steed- A billionaire and leader of the Florida House. He holds together this ragtag team.

Dr. Orval Doubt-Cryptozoologist and resident hacker. He believes in government conspiracies and the existence of aliens.

Kirk T. James- Watcher. He brings his love of Star Trek to work.

Mr. Juan Santoes-Slayer and lone wolf of the group. A childhood tragedy fuels his passion to take out all vampires.

Ms. Staplehouse-Skeptic and debunker of things that go bump in the night.

These members make up the Florida House. Little do they know one of their own is hiding a dark secret.

Shunned- The Metal Veil and Weeping Sword Named Tear

Shy (a warrior woman) has lived with a deformity that has shunned her from society. Can she make a life for herself as a Hunter (one who kills monsters)? Or will her curse be her downfall?

Rapkin (a warrior) partners with this mysterious Shy, who wears a Metal Veil. What could she be hiding behind the half mask? A beauty beyond words or something more terrifying? Will he discover why she is called the Shunned?

Ragon (the Manslayer of Torlawn) is a dragon out for revenge. Will he be able to avenge a past atrocity? Or will Shy and Rapkin do what no other hunter has been able to accomplish? Will they kill the Manslayer of Torlawn? Or will they end up as his next victims?

Read the first installment of this Fantasy Sword and Sorcery short story series.

Grimm- Jane's Entrance

Jane enters the bizarre fairy tale world of Grimm. To survive, she has to find a job. Can she make it her first day as a delivery girl? Or will she be eaten? Will Jane ever find her way back home?

Behemoth

Sailors on a wrecked ship face a giant sea serpent from the depths. Will they survive long enough to see the light of dawn? Or will Davy Jones Locker be their lot?

SHADES OF GRAY SERIES

Book One; Noir, City Shrouded By Darkness (Mobipocket ISBN: 0979857503) (Kindle- ASIN: B001MSI2W2)

Book Two; From Moscow, With Love (Mobipocket ISBN: 0979857511) (Kindle- ASIN: B001MSI2WC)

Book Three; Cerberus Versus Pandora (Mobipocket ISBN: 097985752X) (Kindle- ASIN: B001MSI2WM)

Book Four; Sisters (Mobipocket ISBN: 0979857538) (Kindle- ASIN: B001MSI2WW)

Book Five; Night of the Twilight- the Chimera Strain *Sneak Peek* (*1st of zombie Twilight Quadrilogy) (Mobipocket ISBN: 0979857546 Kindle- ASIN: B001MQCADQ) Full Version Coming Soon 06/2009

Book Six; Dawn of the Twilight- Outbreak (*2nd of zombie Twilight Quadrilogy) -COMING SOON

Book Seven; Day of the Twilight- Patient Zero (*3rd of zombie Twilight Quadrilogy) -COMING SOON

Book Eight; Land of the Twilight- Closing of Days (*4th of zombie Twilight Quadrilogy) -COMING SOON


Other Novels

1. THE FLORIDA HOUSE- MISSION ONE; VAMPIRES, BIGFOOT, ELVIS, AND THE BATES MOTEL

2. BEAUTY OF THE BEASTY-THE MYSTIC ROSE- BOOK ONE

Other Kindle and Mobipocket stories
1. BEHEMOTH- (SEA MONSTER OF THE DEPTHS HORROR FROM THE SEA, SERPENT - SERVANT OF DAVY JONES LOCKER)- Kindle (ASIN: B001NKFWIQ)
2. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Creepy and Funny!
The Florida House is awesome! The characters are quirky and relatable, they are so funny. A paranoid man named Dr. Doubt, a Star Trek fanatic, and a woman with a hidden past make up just part of the team in this amazingly funny and creepy story. A must read!

Good Fantasy/Comedy.
This short was done well and made me laugh at times.So many unexpected events would pop up.I thought the author did a good job with the Grim Brothers fairy tales.

Pretty Funny!!
I thought this was pretty funny.Hope the author makes a series out of it. ... Read more

Product Description
Relates the adventures of Bigfoot Wallace as he travels to Texas, participates in battles against Mexico, serves time as a hostage, and pioneers in the American West. ... Read more

Product Description
Private detective John Denson teams up with sometimes partner Willie Prettybird to help a Russian scientist locate the legendary sasquatch, and collect $100,000. By the author of Whoo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Pedestrian Bigfoot themed mystery
John Denton -the first person narrator of the book -is a P.I in Oregon and his agency partner is the Native American investigator Willie Prettybird .The two hold divergent views on the existenceof Bigfoot for while Denton is a confirmed ,by contrast prettybird is a believer .They are hired as aides cum bodyguards to the attractive Soviet primologist Sonya Popalayov who is one memeber of an expedition hunting for the creature in the Pacific Northwest.Other memebers included the British Museum expert on the subjectDoctor Bondurant ,the adventurer and hunter Addison who has offered a substantial reward for the capture of Bigfoot and two showmen ,the Alford brothers who have a more than slightly tawdry travelling "Sasquatch museum ".Also on hand is the taciturn Fench Canadian hunter Thibodeaux ,veteran of many aSasquatch expedition .
Things take a decidedly dark turn when both Alford brothers are murdered and a raging blizzard exposes the party to the risk of death by exposure ,as if a murderer on the loose was not problem enough!
This is a distinctly lacklustre perfomance ,working neither as a murder mystery or a Saaquath themed novel .Denton and Prettbird are engaging heroes and make a good pair of wisecracking P.I's but overall this is pretty medicre work .

Take it or leave it
As a mystery novel, this one is lacking. As an adventure novel, it's okay; as a bigfoot fiction its just alright. What it is is a bit of a social commentary on people's beliefs and perceptions of what they want. John Denson along with sidekick partner Willie Prettybird are hired to take Russian researcher Sonja Popoleyev up Mt St Helens after a sasquatch sighting is reported. Popoleyev doesn't study sasquatches but rather continues the reasearch of a former deceased scientist that bases evolutionary progression through sexual roles and mating interactions by postulating on simulated models of hominids. It gets a bit tiring listening to this throughout the book. Denson, Sonja, and Willie are joined by two other Native Americans to form one of three groups united to the search. One of the others is lead by Emile, an amalgamation of real people John Green, Rene Dahinden, and some Grover Krantz. The other is run by a tv documentary producer on the paranormal. So all three groups are on the mountain but the focus remains on the Denson party and their experience. Toss in the murders of Alfred and Elford Pollard - two tabloid writers, a $100,000 reward for proof of a bigfoot or hoax by wealthy Mr. Addison, Thom Bondurant fictional head of the British Museum, and an oncoming snow storm and you have this book.

It's one of those books that you will read and probably not remember in a few months. Good enough to add to your bigfoot fiction novel collection.

funny little Bigfoot-story
This is a funny Bigfoot-adventure with sarcastic remarks in abundance. You got the Native American mystic, and, like in Esau by P.Kerr and Neanderthal by J.Darnton the good-looking female scientist. But in the end the mystery about Bigfoot is not entirely solved, so there is place for it in thereader's imagination. ... Read more

Product Description
Looking forward to kindergarten, Benjamin puts on his dad's big, old shoes and imagines how big and confident he will feel when he wears them on his first day of school. ... Read more

Product Description
John Green the pre-eminent authority on Sasquatch/Bigfoot, has 20 years of research assembled in more than 2000 reports. This book assembles these reports from the combined works of 'Encounter with Bigfoot' and 'On the Track of the Sasquarch'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One of the "Big 4"s collection
John Green is one of the alleged most authoritative names in bigfoot research and is classified as one of the Big 4 alongside Dahinden, Byrne, and Krantz. The "Best of Sasquatch" is the reprinting of Green's early books, "On the Track of..." and "Encounters with..." bigfoot/sasquatch. There is also an 'update' segment in the book to help bring it up to speed.

It's great to see the books reprinted and the cover art for the book is well done. The update section is all too brief and Green spends little time or page space to give any really gripping information or update material, but this is standard with both of the books republished here also. Keep in mind, Green is a newspaperman by choice and trade, he's a 'bigfoot researcher' in his spare time. The books of course cover the classic stories of Ostman, Baumann, Ape Canyon, Patterson film, William Roe, and the Chapman's Ruby Creek. These are found in nearly all the books on the subject. The important thing here is that these are among the first real bigfoot/sasquatch based books sent into circulation so is actually some of the earliest printed tellings of the stories. Throughout the rest of the books are very brief encounters, incidents, sightings, etc.. that are convoluted and crammed together with little sense of flow or smoothness. It's like reading a newspaper that has a certain amount of space to stuff in as much info as they possibly can.

The books are very quick reads and give a wide range of compacted stories. As for people calling John Green the authority on bigfoot research... collecting newspaper stories and dropping some money to go look at old tracks does not an expert make (but then what is a "bigfoot expert" anyway). Green has simply collected a massive amount of stories from a variety of sources, compiled them into his "computerized database", and then dropped enough of them together to form a few books. He offers no real theories on the creatures or makes any serious speculations, he's simply a newspaper guy that rounded up his favorite stories and put them into an order to form a book.

But I digress... overall, very well done for being on the forefront of sasquatch material, it gave people a large scope on the range and variety of sightings/encounters. These books have probably been the most influential in the various books that have been published since. Green's best work is "Sasquatch, the Apes Among Us" but this book is still absolutely necessary for any bigfoot collection.

The First One...
When I came back from helping my cousin on a kind of working vacation just outside of Happy Camp, California, my head was full of questions about Bigfoot. That was July, 1969. No, I hadn't seen one or found any strange tracks but I did talk with the other bridge builders there and they told me many stories about finding huge tracks and having equipment moved about. Looking into the forested hillsides and sleeping under the stars at night on the sand banks of the Klamath River had me excited with the thoughts of actually seeing one.

I came back that summer wanting to know more about Bigfoot and as luck would have it I found John Green's On the Track of the Sasquatch and Year of the Sasquatch at a local supermarket. I must have read those 4 or 5 times before I decided that I too wanted to go on the hunt for this legendary man-like creature. John produced a mental map for me, to aide in my search. He gave me the history behind it.

Written not so much as real chapters found in most books, this ex-newsman produced very readable material. It was like a compilation of newspaper articles on a common theme. The books were rustic, over sized 8 x 10. Eyewitness and hair raising encounters abound within. I am sure they inspired many like minded people, as it did me.

Now, Hancock House has reincarnated these two books into one book, "The Best of Sasquatch / Bigfoot" and added some up to date material that has since made national news. Re-reading about the Ruby Creek incident still sends shivers along my spine... tracks made in a potato field, squashing them under the soil, leading up to an old house where fish in a salt barrel was rummaged through is truly more visual then I could imagine coming from the written word.

Seeing the forensic skeleton reconstruction from the Patterson/Gimlin film for the Discovery channels "Sasquatch: Legend meets Science" details out the differences between this creature and man, other than just being hairy, tool challenged and gigantic in stature. There is more here than any other crypto zoological entity. Thousands of eyewitness sightings including those made by trained police officers. Hundreds of casts and tracks, some sporting friction ridges on their surfaces just like all other primates. And then there is the film. A film that has held up for 30 plus years as being the real deal.

Want to get excited about going into the woods and camping again? Read this book. Take it along with you and read it around the camp fire. Experience all the wilderness around you and you'll understand. It really is the best place to read it.

A compilation that reprints his previous titles
Written by foremost sasquatch authority John Green, who has studied the legend for more than 40 years and assembled more than 4000 reports, The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot is a compilation that reprents his previous titles "On the Track of the Sasquatch" and "Encounters with Bigfoot" along with 16 pages of brand new material. Black-and-white photographs, maps, extensive reports of amazing incidents, and just about every possible speculation concerning the mysterious Bigfoot packs this anthology, which is neatly supplemented with an alphabetical index for quick lookup. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in exploring the mystery behind this wildly popular legend.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Pocket booklet, "Bigfoot"
To Review this Product, Amazon.com,
I received one of the used out of print books "Bigfoot" which was in good condition as advertised, and in a timely manner. Everything went very smooth, and it was very easy for me to use Amazon's program to purchase this little pocket book.
Thank You Amazon.com
Richard

California in the '70's...aaawww yyeeahhhh!
This book has it all.Telepathic Bigfoot. 12 foot tall, 3-toed Bigfoot.Bigfoot wearing a blue belt.Bigfoot eating rabbits.Man, it's awesome!As usual with these sorts of books, there's a lot of "What if..?" and "It's just possible.." sort of statements and not a lot of corroborating evidence.An obviously fake plaster cast is used to support the claim that a tribe of Bigfeet gathered nightly to yell at microphones in a campground in the High Sierras.Weird stories of apparent sleep paralysis abound, and the concept of 12 foot tall apemen/ghosts running amok in the Mojave desert is explored with apparent seriousness.

As with other reviewers, I first read this book as a child in the '80's.I thought it was nonsence since I preferred my Bigfoot to be a real live, relict fossil ape from the Pleistocene.Now I've mellowed, and recognize Bigfoot for what he REALLY is: a cultural myth reflective of the times and places he lurks.The practical ape of the '80s and '90s isn't the same being as the mystical, spiritual being of the '60s and '70s or the relict caveman of the '50s.this book perfectly captures the vibe of the '70s in California and will have you reaching for your Juice Newton 8-tracks and putting on your favorite plaid shirt and cuttoff jean shorts as you settle in to read.

Enjoy!

Two Sources
I purchased and read this book after its initial publication in the mid '70s. It was my first introduction to the possible paranormal origins of Bigfoot. Having recently come out of the occult and converting to Christianity at the time, I recognized some of the similarities, andtheir true source. One particular story involved an incident in Pennsylvania, where the individual was overtaken by the same spirit of a Bigfoot. Seemingly demon possessed. Ufos, telepathy, spirit possession and strange disappearances into thin air, all sound a bit fishy. Even the famous series of encounters north of Yosemite National Park, from which the "Sierra Sounds" recordings originated had elements of the supernatural. Especially as the experiences went on. Do I believe all Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Skunk Ape explanations to be from the spirit realm? Not at all. I am of the school that believes there are cryptids, in this case Gigantopithecus, still waiting for classification. But when it comes to certain strange occurrences; yes, I believe they really happened, but were supernatural counterfeits. You'd have to be Spiritually minded to understand what I mean. Remember I was once heavily envolved in the paranormal.

This book has very compelling stories, but some of the conclusions drawn I find dangerous. The same can be said about the whole UFO phenomenon.Just read some of the many so-called "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and you'll see blaring similarities to the world of the occult. Believe me when I say, beware of falling into the trap of the paranormal. This from one who practiced ESP, Astrology and Spiritualism. And having had evil spirits literally put a pillow over my face while lying in bed, trying to suffocate me, discerning the source of some of these other experiences comes quite easy.

In conclusion; yes, I believe in a real creature out there called Bigfoot, but not recognized by science as of yet. A real flesh and blood creature just waiting to be discovered. But I believe also in a counterfeit being perpetrated upon us by the spirit world, with all its recognizable satanic calling cards of possession, telepathy, other dimensions, ESP and even the ability to transform into human appearance, or disappear into thin air (read the Native-American couple's story living near Little Rock, Ca. at the time). Of these, this ex-dabbler into the occultic spirit realm would warn. Beware! Well written, but not for those ignorant of, and unable to discern between the good and the evil in the spirit world.

Bigfoot and the paranormal
I've read most of the books on the subject of Bigfoot. I have had mixed reactions to them but this is the one I have the most mixed about. This book is truly well written and immerses you into the authors' research. I got this book for the background on the Sierra Sounds calling vocalizations. I was entranced in the story of the events leading up to the encounter. However, I quickly fell out of the trance when they started talking about paralyzing lights showing up. From there on out, I found the book less to my personal liking. I'm not one of those the believes bigfoot (plural) are extradimensional beings, have telepathic powers, or are UFO related. For these points, the book didn't hit home for me, however, many others will take interest in the book for those very reasons.

It's all a matter of which bigfoot camp you belong to. 1) Bigfoot are natural occuring yet elusive terrestrial animals - in which this is not a good book for you; or 2) Bigfoot takes a much bigger step into the paranormal/UFO world and then this is a great book for you.

Belated Appreciation


I have a had strange relationship with this book. Years ago, back in the 1970s, I was immersed in Bigfoot/Sasquatch material.
I was into Ivan Sanderson and John Green, John Napier and Rene Dahinden, and anyone else into "Sasquatchology". Even searched out an old edition of Theodore Roosevelt's "The Wilderness Hunter" at the University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Library to read the "Ghost Story" chapter, which is the famed "Baumann Recollection" of trappers attacked by a bipedal "whatsit" in Idaho's Salmon River Country circa the 1840s. Wanted to read the story as Roosevelt wrote it, and a chiller it is.
Throughout all this period of bigfoot fascination, however, I always stayed, as I thought, "grounded in reality". This was some sort of primeval survival, I believed. This is an ape-man.
This is a pithecanthropus or a gigantopithecus or some relative to one of these. It is smart and it lives in the forests and it avoids humans as much as possible. Everything I gleaned from anecdotes about Ape Canyon, Albert Ostman, the Ruby Creek sightings, William Roe and others convinced me we were dealing with a biological creature here. (And, in MOST...but not ALL...cases, still do).

Then one day I spied on a bookshelf a slender little paperback volume with a greenish "impressionistic' cover that announced itself as "Bigfoot", by B. Ann Slate & Alan Berry. I thought, "Alriiiight!" and made the purchase. Took it home and began reading it and started scratching my head. Thought "Whaaaaat?". Paranormal bigfeet? Interdimensional manifestations? Three-toed sasquatches? Invisible ape-men? My "rational" self recoiled at such notions as reported therein.
I thought "This is utter crap" Complete rubbish" and pitched the book into a box somewhere. Later on I heard more such "blather" from another writer named Eric Norman. I decided he was as full of it as Slate and Berry were.

When the "Six Million Dollar Man" started encountering Bigfoot as a cybernetic "bodyguard" to space aliens on television, I decided I knew then who else had bought Slate & Berry to read, the six-mill producer! And figured their claptrap married up perfectly with his own.

But, over the years, as I kept sticking my nose into such things, I kept ENCOUNTERING these three-toed, paranormalist-friendly accounts of bigfoot(with no Steve Austin attached to them).AND stories of sasquatch sightings in "window" areas with associations to UFOs and "spooklights".
I started getting perplexed then. Why? Because little by little I started seeing/hearing incident patterns that harkened back to that "stupid" book I had so blown off years earlier.

So what did I do then? I started LOOKING for the cussed book, fruitlessly. Finally tracked it down through a used book service and ordered it. THIS time I read it with a lot more of an open mind than I had back in the mid-70s (as well as with much more knowledge of corroborating material and testimony)...and found myself completely blown away by it.

I would have to say, right now, that I believe "Bigfoot" by Slate and Berry to be one of the true CLASSICS in this area of research. AND, as one earlier reviewer very aptly put it, it WILL give you the "willies" (note: if anyone here is too young to understand this reference, it refers to the great African-American character actor of the 1940s, Willie Best. See Willie do his thing with Bob Hope in "The Ghostbreakers", when the spectre of the old Spanish grandee walks through his Cubam castle. Willie made a career out of being so frightened by the supernatural that he would shake and shivver hilariously, go bug eyed...MUCH better than Don Knott's as "Mr. Chicken"...and mutter his famous signature gag-line "Feets don't fail me now!". Because of Willie Best, anyone finding themselves in nervous agitation over "something strange" was said to have a case of "the Willies").

Other people have reported on this type of thing (paranormal-like sasquatch associations) in the years since "Bigfoot" was first published; Loren Coleman, Brad Steiger, John Keel, and Scott Corrales, to name but a few. Yet another is Texas writer Rob Riggs, whose "In the Big Thicket" is an excellent compendium of bigfoot/ghostlight mutual phenomena.

It also should be said that Gian Quasar, the author of the excellent "Into The Bermuda Triangle" is completing a book on Bigfoot/Sasquatch that brings a great deal of new research into line that indicates these "things" are NOT cuddly-wuddly "Harry And The Hendersons" type play-pals. That they are quite dangerous in certain circumstances...maybe more dangerous than the average PETA-phile would like to believe. And THAT is ANOTHER thought that might provoke a case of the willies.

But, back to the subject volume here...the Slate/Berry paperback...thirty years ago I would have told you, "Don't bother with this stupid book. Save your money." TODAY I tell you, don't MISS this wonderful, insightful MILESTONE in the literature.

Seemingly proof of the old adage, "With age comes wisdom". ... Read more

Product Description
Read about a true-life mystery! The puzzle of the sasquatch has been ongoing since the first men settled the West and heard stories from the Native population about strange and elusive large, hairy creatures. These stories have endured to present day and eyewitnesses continues to come forward. Unfortunately no hard physical evidence has been produced. This book gives accounts of sightings that have occurred over the last twenty years throughout western Canada. Many of these encounters have never been written about before and all offer insight into this lasting mystery. This book is sure to interest and intrigue even the most sceptical. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Terrific overview of activity in the Canadian Wilderness!!!!
This book is in my view an excellent overview of the Sasquatch activity in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. Steenburg writes with the comfortable style that endears many to the way John Green writes; no wonder, since Steenburg and Green are friends and close associates. Steenburg has interviewed many witnesses for this book, and the interviews are well-written and not tedious. All of the witnesses interviewed are absolutely certain about what they have seen, and have no doubt as to what they saw. The majority of the reports in the book come from eastern B.C. and western Alberta, which shows that Steenburg has travelled a great deal to get these stories. Steenburg asks each witness the same questions, but doesn't always get the same answers, which indicates that the witnesses are credible. This book is well-written and very concise, and it is highly recommended.

Steenburg on Canada
Thomas Steenburg seems to be the man to cover western Canada now for info on sasquatch. Given that former leadman John Green is getting on in years, Steenburg takes the reigns nicely and gives a steady stream of incidents taking place in British Columbia and Alberta. The upside of the book is that Steenburg sticks with Canada, his home and covers the area well. The downfall is, he uses the formula interview questions on every interview and some of the questions tend to be leading. After repeatedly reading the same questions, you become a little bored but at least he's asking the same questions of everyone.

The stories are varied and he does a good job with the questioning but I still find it hard to believe people can pick out certain details on someone/thing at a distance of 1/2 a mile. I've tested this, you really don't get much facial or miniscule detail on a person standing over a 100 yards away and that's stretching it. General looks yes but details by the naked eye just isn't all the feasible.

The most intriguing story of the book is the Crandell (sp?) Campground incident and will probably become a regular story in future books on bigfoot/sasquatch. The overall flow of the book is easy to read and you get some much lesser known encounters by regular people all over western Canada. Combined with his other book "Sasquatch:Bigfoot, the Continuing Mystery" and Robert Alley's "Raincoast Sasquatch" you get a very good coverage of all of BC and Alberta.

In search of Giants
The book is full of facts and iformation. Eric J Mazzi

shows you what to do
What Thomas Steenburg does in this book is tells you what he doesn in his filed research, and how he interviews people who have seen a bigfoot. This is a very unique book, not only does he tell you what he think of any one sigthing he looks into, but he even writes the interviews in the book to let you be the judge! one of the better books on the subject. i rate it 5 stars, because it has such a large amount of info in it.

A personal account of one man's bigfoot investigation
Steenburg has been investigating sasquatch in northwestern Canada for years, and he's presenting his latest evidence. The meat of his book is interviews with subjects who claim to have seen the big North American primate, typed verbatim minus the 'uh...' and 'um...' He even gives sighting statistics taken from the data he collected.

While it is interesting to get an in depth glance at a cryptozoologist at work, Steenburg (for all his stat making) seems to be missing the real pattern.

Nearly every interview is identical, a pattern that also reveals itself in alien abduction scenarios. The subject witnessed a bigfoot from (usually) over 100 yards, it was walking quickly in one direction, until it saw the witness, then changed to a different direction and disappeared. (Animal behavior, it would seem, should be somewhat less predictable.) Little trace is left behind, neither footprints nor hair. The lack of tracks is explained away by hard, dry, rocky (pick your adjective) ground.

I believe Steenburg is a genuine researcher providing only the facts he has collected. However, a reading of his text begs an explanation for the sighting pattern that occurs again and again. This seems to make the entire book more a comment on Jungian archetypes that prey on our collective subconscious rather than an exploration of unknown simians in the Canadian wilderness.

The book as a whole works for the skeptic, the true believer, or the mildly interested. It's an honest work about honest people who honestly believe they've encountered something. It's the "something" that is left in doubt. ... Read more

Product Description
Special Library EditionBigfoot...Fact or Fiction?Read this book before you decide!====================From recent footprints to ghostly figures painted on stone centuries ago, "Backyard Bigfoot" presents startling evidence that the hairy creatures who lurk in our world's backcountry represent more than a figment of our collective imagination. Bigfoot expert Lisa A. Shiel lays out the evidence - physical and folkloric, ancient and modern - to prove that Bigfoot and its kin all over the world stand closer to us than we ever imagined.If you're a newcomer to the subject, you'll learn valuable facts as the author guides you through the mine field of theories, counter-theories, and assumptions about Bigfoot. Knowledgeable researchers will find a treasure trove of little-known evidence and usually taboo concepts. In perfect detail, Shiel lays out her singular and astonishing revelations about Bigfoot, gleaned from years of research - both in the field and in the historical archives. Joining her odyssey, you'll explore:* Stick signs -purposeful symbols created with sticks and other material;* Mane braiding, where intricate braids appear in horses' manes overnight;* Predominant Bigfoot theories, and why they don't fit the facts;* UFO-Bigfoot connection details typically dismissed by academic pedagogues; and* Distorted human history and how it affects our perceptions of the Bigfoot enigma.From human evolution to lost civilizations, from UFOs to ancient artwork, Shiel weaves disparate threads into one incredible yet thoroughly believable theoretical tapestry - and leaves you breathless.===================="A skillfully written combination of field observations, academic perspectives, and discussions of other paranormal mysteries." - Thom Powell, author of "The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon""A unique, and intensely personal perspective on the Bigfoot controversy." - Nick Redfern, author of "On the Trail of the Saucer Spies""You may agree or not wit her conclusions but you will be thoroughly entertained by the discussions." - Andrew Grgurich, The Mining Journal (Marquette,Mich.)"Absolutely one of the best types of investigative reporting I've seen as Shiel compiles so much information into this one little book that you will read over and over again." - Beverly Pechin, Reader Views ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

interesting
Intersting that philosophical believers like so called "sceptics" seem to be more interested than narrow minded big foot "researchers".
The stick photos are interesting.The conjecture ..sure..why not.
Are ALL photos that show very strange things "explainable" as insects/moisture etc, gee, after taken photos for over 30 years with all types of cameras/film types/with a printing background etc..the short but ugly answer is NO.
Philosophers(ie sceptics) will never be persuaded by any form of instrumental "evidence" like film/video/tape recording etc..of ideas that are outside their own belief systems.. to pretend otherwise is at best..sad..at worst..dishonest..so why pretend the "evidence" is not good enough.
And..will people who "know alot about big foot" (which is an oxymoron if ever there was)be convinced by this interesting book..of course not.They are as narrow minded as their "sceptical" cousins.
The little/no evidence after all these years does not faze them at all...
They will cling to "bigfoot pop up on many continents of the world are too smart to be caught" which is just brilliant "thinking"...:)
The emperor is naked...

MikeW

Backyard Bigfoot Review
I've followed the Bigfoot phenomenon for 25 years and I have to admit this little volumn is a well-thought out tome on the subject. It is well researched and documented and gives one pause for thought. I highly recommend this title for a different perspective on the elusive bigfoot subject.

Bigfoot Spotted In Upper Michigan!!!
I confess I started to read "Backyard Bigfoot" with some trepidation since in my childhood I was deathly afraid of Bigfoot. I also found myself more alarmed while reading the book to discover that not only is Shiel immensely interested in hairy hominids but she has also had some interactions with them! Talk about a scary topic.

But as I read "Backyard Bigfoot", I found myself more and more engrossed in the book. Shiel's interactions with Bigfoot occurred both in Texas and her current home in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan--just a few hours away from me! Besides hearing Bigfoot screams and finding their footprints, Shiel has played a game of stick signs with her hairy hominid friends. After finding strange stick formations laid out in the woods around her home, she decided to make her own stick formations nearby, only to return the next day and find her stick signs rearranged into new patterns. The purpose of the stick formations she found remains unknown, other than being a game or a sign that the hairy hominids were simply curious about her and sought to interact with her.

But stick signs are just the beginning of what becomes a very gripping narrative. While most authors who write about Bigfoot seek to convince readers that Bigfoot exists, Shiel refuses to go that route. Instead, she speaks with commonsense about science, its often faulty views about evolution and DNA, and where and if the hairy hominid fits into the human family tree. She also details examples of sightings of hairy hominids back to ancient times, including potential references in the Bible, drawings of them from Ancient Egypt, and the attributed Wildman of medieval legends. Shiel makes a very convincing argument that hairy hominids do exist and that a better understanding of them is vital to our own understanding of evolution and human history.

And then the strange flashing lights appeared near her home...Yes, Bigfoot has a UFO connection, but to explain that would give away the fun of reading the book.

What I will say is that Shiel is extremely level-headed about her arguments. I don't think she exaggerates, fakes evidence, or uses faulty reasoning. I don't always completely agree with her arguments and conclusions, but I find them fascinating and possible. I especially commend her common sense in asking valid questions regarding scientific theories about evolution.

"Backyard Bigfoot" is a fast, fascinating, and thought-provoking read. It is the most interesting scientific-based book I have read since Bryan Sykes's "The Seven Daughters of Eve", a book Shiel would obviously find fault with. I recommend "Backyard Bigfoot" to anyone interested in science, history, anthropology, evolution, and the supernatural who also enjoys a gripping story.

Shiel is also the author of a series of adventure novels about Bigfoot. I will definitely be reading those soon. [...]

And Lisa, when you do talk to Bigfoot, please tell him to stay over in the Keweenaw. I enjoy reading about him, but I'm not up for a houseguest in Marquette.

- Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of The Marquette Trilogy: "Iron Pioneers", "The Queen City", and "Superior Heritage", all available on Amazon.

A Brave Voice of Wondrous Encounters
Lisa Sheil has done a brave thing in writing about her unusual encounters and theories concerning Bigfoot. As she herself notes, the idea that Bigfoot shares a connection with UFOs, orbs, psychic phenomena and other anomalous activity is highly controversial. Shiel's willingness to put herselfout front with her experiences and theoriesis to be commended.

The UFO - Bigfoot connection is not one looked upon favorably by both many UFO researchers, as well as Bigfoot researchers. It is a brave thing to put oneself out there with not only personal encounters of such a `high strangeness' content, but to extend that experience further by concluding that there is a relationship between human, Sasquatch, psi, and UFOs. Too much for some; as both UFO and Bigfoot researchers know.But as Shielsays,the data is out there (and I know it is, having researched two Pacific Northwest encounters of a similar type myself) and this fact won't go away.

A word about that: it sounds wild, and from my own experience, I can say that if this is the first time the reader is coming across this, it may sound very strange.I know that when I first read about a `Bigfoot-UFO' connection, I almost threw the article in the trash. But after coming across numerous, similar stories about this relationship, I was forced to acknowledge that there is a body of evidence that suggests there is something to these "high strangeness" encounters.


From the first unusual `stick sign' found on her Texas property Shiel finds that these patterns seemed to have been made intentionally by someone -- or something. Chances of the message maker being human, while a rational assumption, were slight, since Shiel lived in a remote rural area. Andwhen Shiel moves from Texas to her isolated new home in the upper Michigan peninsula, she finds that the message maker, or makers, have followed her. For Lisa Shiel discovers that this fascinating and unusual mystery didn't get left behind in Texas.

Based on her previous Bigfoot research,Shiel suspects that the ones responsible for these `signs' could be Sasquatch. As Shiel begins to respond to themessages by rearranging the sticks and other items left by the messenger, a communication between human and non-human begins.

Shiel's book includes a wealth of photographs, Bigfoot research, and background into folklore and anomalous phenomeana to reach her conclusions. These may shock some readers at first, and put off others completely, if it weren't for the fact that, as Shiel points out, the relationship between Bigfoot and UFOs has been documented time after time. Refreshingly, Shiel addresses the various angles to this relationship, while keeping an open mind -- and urging others, including `flesh and blood' Bigfoot researchers, to do the same .

Shiel is to be applauded for her willingness to refuse to ignore this mysterious aspect of Bigfoot studies, as well as her fearlessness in her ongoing journey to discover the truth behind these types of events.

R. Lee
The Orange Orb
[...]

Well researched, nicely written - not so convincing
I was curious about the possibility of stick signs being real evidence of interaction with Bigfoot, but I was also curious to know if Lisa A. Shiel, author of Backyard Bigfoot, had a new, logical, perspective on Bigfoot and how the plausible existence of hairy forest giants might relate to UFOs, "orbs" and other paranormal mysteries.

Her outlook on these subjects seems just as naive as many others who staunchly "believe" that photographed orbs are manifestations of spirits from beyond, and that UFO's are proof that extraterrestrials, or interdimensional beings, maneuver through our airspace in highly advanced craft.

The bottom line is that there is absolutely no proof to substantiate these phenomena, and it is illogical to speculate based on belief alone.

I mean no disrespect to the author. This is an interesting, well written book, and she certainly has done her fair share of research. Her theories are entertaining, and there is much anthropological and paleontological inforamtion included in the book, though not always in the best context.

In some cases I notice that her interpretations are a bit of a stretch from what one might ordinarily gather from the information at hand. For example, in the first chapter, "Ancient Evidence," Shiel presents an image of a pottery piece decorated with a representation of Bes, an Egyptian "hairy dwarf" god. Sheil tells us that Bes is often depicted with a feathered headdress, large feet, and sometimes as a bipedal lion-like creature. What she fails to mention are the obvious wing-like appendages seen protruding from the back of the creature in the image presented. This depiction of Bes is as much a representation of a hairy hominid as it is of Mothman, for those who believe in the existence of such a thing.

The stick sign phenomenon is intriguing, and may indeed be evidence of a possible attempt at communication, or mere playfulness, by creatures we know as Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Shiel has obviously done extensive experimentation with the stick sign phenomenon, but the fact that it continued at two very different locations, and on her property in both cases, may indicate that the phenomenon could have been generated through her own misperception of her environment.

I'm a skeptical person, but I try to keep an open mind when reading books like this. Backyard Bigfoot does contain some ineteresting information, and possible evidence that may or may not suggest the presence of hairy hominids on the author's property.

Much of what the author presents is assumption. She assumes a connection between hairy hominids and UFOs based on anecdotal evidence, stories. She assumes that orbs, and other most likely photographic and optical anomalies, represent paranormal activity and not common dust, moisture, insects, or other airborne debris. Shiel also assumes that these orbs have a connection to the alleged hairy hominids she believes frequent her property.

Shiel suggsts a connection between things like strange lights, mystery canids appearing on her motion-activated game camera, and her sighting of an out-of-place jaguar near her home when she lived in northern Texas. It seems that all of the world's paranormal mysteries found their way into her backyard. That is, if out of place jaguars, or wolf-like animals are paranormal phenomena.

Something I've noticed with many people who believe in these "mysteries" is that they tend to experience all kinds of strangeness in their lives, while skeptics like me seem to miss it all. And everything becomes part of some great mystery far beyond the comprehension of even the most educated scientists and thinkers.

On that note, one thing that Shiel doesn't hesitate to do, whenever she has the opportunity in this book, is to bash skeptics as a close minded group with an agenda to shut the door on all hope for the believers. I got the distinct impression that she views skeptics as the most illogical people, when in fact the opposite is true.

Skeptics ask questions, and point out facts which believers tend to conveniently ignore. I'm not bashing the author. She has written a fun book, and presents plenty of food for thought. There can be no belittling the author for the work she has done. She is an intelligent person, and the book is well researched. I must say, however, that much of what she offers and interprets seems liberally colored by her belief.

Are Bigfoot responsible for the stick signs she finds on her property? Maybe. Does Bigfoot exist? Maybe. But it seems that the author has convinced herself of their existence and assumes that they are communicating with her through the stick signs. Some of the stick sign formations do seem to be deliberate, while others could very well have just fallen out of a tree and landed that way.

There are many other creatures in the woods capable of shuffling some sticks around, during the course of gathering materials for a nest or den, even the wind can whip up a loose branch, twig or stick and have them land as they may. To say that the stick signs are evidence of a creature that has never been sufficiently proven to exist is a stretch.

Throughout the book are refereces to stick signs and rocks (some of which Shiel claims are evidence of hairy hominids' toolmaking skills), appearing where they were not the day before.

How is it possible that the author has such precise recollection of what is, or is not present on her property, and how can she be so certain as to how something got there? Are we to believe that Shiel strolls through her property on a daily basis making a detailed inventory of the contents of her land? Many of the passages in the book seem to indicate just that.

I will admit that my explanations above do not answer the riddle as to why Shiel seems to consistently get responses to her own placed stick signs. If an animal didn't just happen to shuffle over the sticks during the night, rearranging them a bit by mistake, then maybe there is something intelligent trying to communicate with her. But the evidence is sketchy. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a Bigfoot. Does it?

Sheil also discusses mystery braids that appear in the manes of her horses, seemingly overnight. She describes the detail, and intricacy of the braids, but at the same time refers to them as having a knotted appearance and being difficult to remove.

The photos Shiel presents of the braids show no real detail, and don't really help to support her claim. In some pictures it looks like she's showing nothing more than a tangle of hairs. Hard to say for sure. Also, she is again making an assumption that the braids are the work of playful, hairy hominids. Let's keep in mind that she never saw any Bigfoot lay down the stick signs or make the braids. Therefore we cannot establish for certain that they are responsible for these events.

There is no proof, despite the cute cover image, which seems more suited for a childrens' book than a serious examination of the Bigfoot phenomenon.

The book is interesting, however I must say that it is odd as well. It is a book about the paranormal and the author's belief, well suited for those who wish to continue to believe in these things. ... Read more

Product Description
In October 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed a Bigfoot creature at Bluff Creek, California. The full story of the filming, its aftermath and authoritative conclusions on the creature filmed are provided in this updated edition of Patterson's original 1966 book 'Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Buy it for Patterson, skip Murphy
This book is really just a republished version of Roger Patterson's hard-to-find original "Do Abominable Snowmen of North America Really Exist?"As such, it's incredibly valuable as a window into how Patterson viewed Bigfoot.Patterson was a talented artist and had the excellent idea to illustrate several famous legendary encounters with supposed Bigfeet.Ironically, his propensity for artistic recreations offers insight into how he went about hoaxing his famous film the year after this book was published (and selling very poorly).

Never the less, the Patterson portion of this book is classic.He viewed Bigfoot as an "aboriginal giant" and as being much more human than later authors would believe.In this way, his views were more reflective of the Native American's ideas of the beings.Later authors tried to make Bigfoot a bipedal ape, but here is a chance to see how the original interpretation of Bigfoot as a primordial man led to Patterson's film depicting a very human as opposed to ape-like being.Excellent stuff for those interested in this aspect of the Bigfoot legend.

As for Murphy's portion...well...Chris Murphy has no training of any relevence at all, being as he worked for a phone company and was a stamp collector.In essence, he latched onto Bigfoot in the '90s as a way to make a quick buck by "helping" Rene Dahinden sell replicas of his casts.Later he tried to make a name for himself by "proving" Patterson's film was a guy in a suit.Now he's done a 180 and has become a Bigfoot promoter, attending conferences, publishing quickly slapped-together scrapbooks, and in general trying to grab as much attention and cash as he can while it lasts.His observations on the film are essentially useless and serve only to highlight how a guy with no expertise at all can use smoke, mirrors, and few anatomical terms to try to pull one over on anyone who'd pay him a moment's notice.

Buy the book for Patterson, and skip the Murphy.

Patterson revisited
Here we have Chris Murphy stepping in to the bigfoot limelight again. This book is divided into two parts. The first 2/3 of the book is a reprint of Roger Patterson's "Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?". The deceased Patterson's book is a collection of newspaper and magazine stories with his thoughts interjected in them. The clippings tend to get redundant, often copying each other and there are multiple articles from Ivan Sanderson used therein. Patterson was also able to show off his own art skills with a multitude of his own interpretive drawings based on witness testimony along with hand drawn maps of areas, all are well done.

The last 1/3 of the book can be broken in half also. The first being a reprint of a number of 'authorities' giving their views on whether the P-G Bigfoot film is real or a hoax (coincidentally all in favor). The second part of this section is Murphy's rebuttal to Greg Long's book "The Making of Bigfoot" claiming Bob Heironimus was 'the man in the suit'. Murphy gives brief counter-arguments to many of Long's 'evidence of hoaxing', many of which have been discussed in reviews of Long's book on Amazon.com. Interesting that Long refused permission for Murphy to reprint an 'evidence picture' of Bob Heironimus doing the bigfoot walk and also Phillip Morris (claims to have sold Patterson one of his movie gorilla suits) refused to let Murphy print any pictures of one of his gorilla suits which Morris claims he can identify in the P-G footage.

All in all, this is a good book because you get Patterson's book which was first printed before he even shot the P-G bigfoot film. The affirming letters from 'experts' are collected into one stockpile and Murphy's counter-arguments are well done albeit brief in content.

The only problem I have with this book and Murphy's other book "Meet the Sasquatch" is that in 1999, Chris Murphy and Cliff Crook were doing the same 'debunking' of the film claiming to have found a "bell shaped object" resembling a zipper dangling from the waist in blown-up stills from the film (google it, you'll see). Murphy seems to be firm in his resolve on the bigfoot issue now but a meer six years ago he was disclaiming it? Is this a matter of just easily cashing in on a popular subject matter or is he truly a believer? Tough for me to decide but you be the judge for yourself.

For anyone looking to investigate the legend
The Bigfoot Film Controversy presents the complete text of Roger Patterson's landmark book "Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?" along with a paragraph of historical corrections, and a supplementary update on the famous Patterson/Gimlin Bigfoot film. Black-and-white as well as some color photographs enhance the text, and a general index allows for quick and easy reference. Patterson's original book describes native american legends as well as details of various individual sightings and even a horrifying Bigfoot story attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. The supplement discussing Patterson's film includes enlarged color images and testimonies from a biomechanics expert, a forensic examiner, and anthropologist, discussion of questions raised (including issues concerning the anatomy of the creature the whether or not the film featured an actor in a costume) and more. An excellent resource for anyone looking to investigate the legend of Bigfoot, whether one is a skeptic, a believer, or simply an inquistive-minded individual at heart.
... Read more

Product Description
Robert Michael Pyle trekked into the Dark Divide, where he discovered a giant fossil footprint; searched out Indians who told him of an outcast tribe that had not fully evolved into humans; and attended the convocation in British Columbia called Sasquatch Daze, where he realized that "these guys don't want to find Bigfoot-they want to be Bigfoot." Ultimately Pyle discovers a few things about Bigfoot - and a lot about the human need for something to believe in and the need for wilderness in our lives.Amazon.com Review
A search for the Pacific Northwest's fabled Bigfoot provides a jumping-off point for nature writer Robert Michael Pyle's lyrical ruminations on wilderness, isolation, and the occasional triumphs of mystery over so-called progress. Pyle's well-researched stomping ground is Washington State's Dark Divide in the Cascade Mountains--this rugged country of loggers and recreationists has been the scene for many sightings of the elusive man-beast. Pyle's route alternates between desolate clear-cuts and majestic ancient forests, between the inroads of civilization and the dark recesses of the wild. But never does the author get too caught up in proving anything to himself or the reader; this search for Bigfoot has as much to do with locating the wild nature within each of us as it does with finding a legend. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Dissapointing
I thought this book was about bigfoot. It is not. What little that is written about bigfoot is just a rehashing of much told events.

Occasionally there was some interesting areas such as the author relating his meetings throughout his travels with a diverse group of people. The dialouge between himself and them was often interesting. But there is little of that. Most of it is his own feelings and musings about nature. Often these musings will go on for pages about such mundane subjects as moths. And at times the author does get a bit kooky, like when he talks about walking naked through the forests.

At times his writing is good though. (Hence the 2 stars) The nature of the subject matter was just too boring and hippyish to hold my interest throughout.

Rich, rewarding work from talented writer
Face it, if you are looking for a book "about" Bigfoot, it is necessarily going to be slim. With no definitive proof that Bigfoot exists - no data to analyze, no pictures, no fossils, no bodies - the basic gist of purportedly "scientific" Bigfoot books boils down to a lot of speculating about second hand information. Interesting perhaps, but never convincing. You either believe or you don't. (And to be clear, I am a believer.)

On the other hand, a book about what it is in man - and his relationship to wilderness - that gives rise to the Bigfoot legend is far more compelling. Where Bigfoot Walks is just such a book. Beautifully written and engaging, the book uses the search for Bigfoot as a metaphor to characterize the endless search for meaning that occurs inside our own souls. Rooted in the holiest of wilderness areas, the Gifford Pinchot (luckily for me a stone's throw from Portland), Mr. Pyle takes an amazing journey into the heart of nature and emerges with a lesson for us all: man simultaneously is sustained by and seeks to tame, the solitude and endless potentials inherent in wilderness.

That the author fails to offer definitive proof of Bigfoot is of little consequence. His book stands as a testament to the power of the journey, no matter what destination is sought. It is also a glorious ode to the natural world. Bigfoot believers and nonbelievers alike should read this book. It won't convince skeptics, but it will frame the quest, quite elegantly, in a language accessible to all.

Where Bigfoot Walks
Intersting book, the book keeps you thinking, Rober Michael Pyle makes you feel that you are on the Journey with him. A big plus for this book.++++++++++++ Eric J. MAzzi Pa

Beware the title
I'll make this brief, for the people interested in bigfoot/sasquatch, forget all about this book. Now the good point... for the people that enjoy a well written book on a long nature walk, you'll eat this up. Pile is very detailed in his descriptions of nature and you should really enjoy this book. Bigfoot followers... not so much.

Excellent writing, but doesn't live up to the hype.
As somewhat of a skeptic, but still keeping an open mind, I enjoy topics such a `bigfoot' when they're written intelligently and with a base of reason.As for "Where Bigfoot Walks", I should've looked at other reviews of this book a bit more, but when Midwest book review stated things like "...fascinating study of Bigfoot legends and realities..." I gambled- and lost.For outdoor enthusiasts, this is a rich story of a man's travels through the wilderness.And I must hand it to Mr. Pyle, he really does write well.It almost seems as if he anticipated readers interested in bigfoot to get bored with it quickly, like when he goes on about hitching rides from Indians because he runs out of water- or something like that,but his timing is right and just as you're about to toss the book aside he throws in something interesting enough to get you to keep reading.In the end though, it's all rather anticlimactic, and not what I was looking for. ... Read more

Product Description
A famous dude shoots an even more famous legend. Will the mystery survive when it is dead in the back of a truck? When a famous author shoots Bigfoot while drunk on his porch, he forgets the old adage of shotgun, shovel and shut up. He is put on trial and the adventure begins. Along the way he learns there are some things people will not believe even if they see it with their own eyes. It is a complete novella with three other short stories. Set in Valley County, Idaho and the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, it is an adventurous romp about the beast who stomps. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

it's no Myth
Setting aside all the highbrow reviewing, when you get right down to it, what I like best is a good yarn. If it makes me smile, holds my attention and gives me a jolt or two, I'm perfectly happy to hand over my cash.

This collection is full of good yarns. The title story is, perhaps, the best one to my mind, including as it does all the things that I, personally, think makes for a great story. But the others are fairly nifty too. The language is all pretty naturalistic; the situations run from the familiar to the bizarre and the humor of the author is evident and welcome throughout.

You know that good buddy you like to sit on your back porch with, tossing back a beer and topping each other's tall tales? This book is that buddy.

Buy it. It'll make you smile.

Bigfoot reveals our folly
Michael Wells draws upon his extensive background as a reporter to create meticulously detailed fiction. Without forcing the humor, the cumulative effect of his relentlessly straightforward style is a droll awareness of human folly played out against our best efforts at appearing reasonable. His characters believe themselves absolutely, and often erroneously. The gap between outrageous every day events and our natural attempts at normalizing and accepting those events is Wells' turf, and he makes the most of it.

You'll be hearing from this guy again
Kansas City is the western-most point I've ever traveled to in this country, but after reading this fun, engaging book, I feel like I know Idaho as well as I do my own home in the Midwest.To me, the setting is the main character in this book and Mr. Wells does a superb job of putting very relatable every-man types into extraordinary situations unique to the area.Can't wait to read more from this guy.

Bigfoot lives!!
This book is a great easy read. It keeps your interest and moves you through it as a few of the stories and characters are intertwined keeping it interesting.

Definately one of the better books on Bigfoot!!!

Just what I was looking for
This book of short stories was just the escape from reality I was looking for. I really enjoyed all of the local references. ... Read more

Product Description
In Bigfoot Exposed, biological anthropologist and primate physiology specialist David J. Daegling objectively examines the northwest American myth of Bigfoot. Using scientific methodology, Daegling systematically and persuasively repudiates the evidence purportedly demonstrating the creature's existence, and ultimately concludes that Bigfoot exists only in the popular imagination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Not convincing
I'll give the professor good marks for doing considerable research on the famous 'Bigfoot' cases, but he looks for proof of his skeptic's case among the hoaxers and publicity seekers that tend to cluster around the more famous cases.Not only that but he simply shrugs off the thousands of foot prints that have been found all over the country, claiming that they are merely the work of 'clever hoaxers'.I'd like to see the professor go out into his back yard and produce a single Bigfoot print that would fool anyone. Moreover, since foot prints are often found in snow, or in long track lines that extend for many hundreds of yards, a 'clever hoaxer' would have to be able to produce thousands of fake tracks in a very short period of time, which, if the professor would admit it to himself, would be impossible. I know he is desperate to protect current scientific assumptions about the relationship between man and the other primates, but this rather glib book is not going to accomplish his goals.

Interesting book, but Daegling misses the point
This book, while a great improvement over Greg Long's The Making of Bigfoot,is still a damning expose' of Bigfoot research full of suppositions and speculations, but very little facts. Daegling certainly had good intentions in mind to try to debunk Bigfoot as a phenomenon, but he spent too much time in suppositions and speculations and not enough time stating facts. For instance, he misrepresents the late Grover Krantz by saying that he did not endorse the "Skookum Cast", a 2/3 body impression of what may be a Bigfoot, but I saw an interview with Krantz in which he said it looked to him like a Sasquatch had been thrashing around on the ground. Daegling takes the word of two Bigfoot researchers who have never seen the cast that it's of an elk. Daegling also buys into the Ray Wallace nonsense hook, line and sinker, as well as praisingknown hoaxers like Ray Pickens, Rant Mullens and Paul Freeman.He seems to imply that Bigfoot researchers are wasting their time looking for something that may not exist (in his mind) and the book loses its objectivity there. He gives what are seemingly plausible solutions to things like tracks, the Patterson/Gimlin film, hair samples and fecal matter, but his bias comes through when reporting these things, which is unfortunate. He seems to imply that Krantz and Dr. Jeff Meldrum (his old college roommate) were gullible enough to but into the Bossburg "Cripple-Foot" tracks, and also some of tracks found by Freeman whichmay or may not contain dermal ridges. In short, Daegling's book fails to really make the case for the skeptics that Bigfoot is not real. Still, I would recommend this book over Long's even if with reservations.

Title Is Misleading...
The problem with a lot of alleged scientists and hack writers is that they do not do their homework before the spew out a thesis and attempt to get the public to follow them like lemmings.This book is not a representative expose' on the true evidence for the possibility of Bigfoot's existence.As another reviewer put it, the author should have actually gone for a few hikes and explored the country and not just rehashed some schlock that they found in other writers' anti-bigfoot rhetoric.This book displays less about Bigfoot and more about poor writing and research.The publisher must have been blinded by the tabloid title and not even cared about factual information.There are FAR better books on BOTH sides of the "Bigfoot aisle".Just let this one continue to sit and get dusty.

Well written and informative....but
Daegling provides a well-written look from the skeptics point of view at the Bigfoot phenomenon.Unlike some books by advocates, he gives quite a bit of coverage to the opposite point of view.He provides all the reasons why advocates say the evidence is real, then tries to tear it down.He mostly succeeds...mostly.Some of his explinations for how the Patterson film could have been faked are harder to believe than the thought that a real creature could be roaming our woods without detection.Read this together with Dr. Jeff Meldrum's "Bigfoot:The Legend Meets Science" and you'll have the closest thing to a debate on the subject as you can get.Meldrum takes the opposite view, saying the evidence is simply too detailed to be fake.Both of these men are anthropologists with many credentials, so you can't simply dismiss one or the other.Daegling is the better writer, while Meldrum has done more hands-on research.Both are great books that should be read by anyone interested in the subject.

Things That Go Bump in the Mind?
"Bigfoot Exposed" is the best skeptical book that I've read on the Bigfoot legend.Daegling reviews the evidence in calm, well written prose--he does not personalize the debate and seems to have a sincere respect for the Bigfoot "advocates" with whom he plainly but respectfully disagrees.

Bigfoot believers will not like Daegling's conclusions, but he gives the legend a fair shake.He takes the mystery seriously and analyzes it carefully, posing some reasonable questions: If Bigfoot is a real animal, why have we found no bodies or bones for scientists to study?Where are the fossils that show when such a large animal arrived or evolved in North America?How can a breeding population of 1,000 pound primates live on the well-populated West Coast of the United States without occasionally (or even frequently) being killed by a hunter or struck by an automobile?If we have a true scientific understanding of the animal's footprints, why can't we reliably distinguish known fakes from the real thing?(Even Bigfoot expert Gordon Krantz was taken in by a cleverly hoaxed print.)If the Patterson film is so convincing, why do so many people have good reasons to doubt it--and, if there's a breeding popultion of large animals amid a human population well equipped with camcorders and picture phones, why haven't we gathered much more and much better photographic evidence in the last 40 years?

It's possible, of course, that there will ultimately be good answers to these questions and that Bigfoot will turn out to be real.Daegling's book simply explains why that's not the way to bet.

Another good book in this genre of "taking the Bigfoot legend seriously but not becoming a convinced believer," is Robert Michael Pyle's "Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide," which describes the search for Bigfoot and Pyle's own experiences hiking and camping in Bigfoot country. ... Read more

Product Description
The world can be a dangerous place. Just ask George Kodiak.When a strange and extremely aggressive animal is shot and killed by police inside a local Voodoo priestess' family mausoleum, who better to identify the thing than "the guy who caught Bigfoot"?In this, the third installment of "The Kodiak Books" series, cryptozoologist George Kodiak comes to Louisiana to confirm an identity for what could possibly be the legendary Honey Island Swamp Monster. When a necropsy fails to nail down a specific species for the seven-foot, fur-covered beast with claws like a bear and double rows of very sharp teeth, Kodiak becomes embroiled in the world of Voodoo to investigate why this woman was keeping the animal inside her mausoleum. To find the answer, he will risk losing his sanity... and his life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Voodoo, Hoodoo, Scary Stuff and a Whole Lot More
I like a horror story, really like a horror story, and Lee not only serves up a tension filled, scary read, but somehow he sneaks in a bit of voodoo, some hoodoo, a monster based on myth or maybe fact, because by the time you're halfway through the story you will believe.

Then you'll start looking over your shoulder as George Kodiak wanders from one gut wrenching situation into another. Kodiak keeps coming back for more, he's a hero for our times and each of Lee's books is better than the last. I for one cannot wait for the next.

By the way, after I read the manuscript this is what I wrote.

"If you haven't read Lee Murphy yet, you're in for a pleasant and chilling surprise. HERETOFORE UNKNOWN takes horror and cryptofiction to a whole 'nother level. A masterpiece of crypto-horror fiction. It chilled me to the bone."

It's been a long time since I wrote that and a long time since I read that early draft, long enough so that when I picked up the book yesterday I thought I could approach it fresh, but not so, because some of the characters and situations just stayed with me, a few words into a scene and it all came rushing back. The book is substantially the same as that manuscript, more polished to be be sure, but the gripping story is the same, the characters real as life, the writing and tone of voice first rate. What I said back then goes double now. This is a good book, one you won't want to miss.

PS. I don't know exactly just what hoodoo is, but it sure as heck sounds good coming after voodoo.

Geoge Kodiak chases another hoo-doo down!
I can only compare Lee's latest cryptonovel to a roller coaster ride of pure horror, driven with the help of my hero, George Kodiak, a Korean war veteran who is even older than I am, but with a great deal more stamina to fight these fearsome creatures.I can only hope that Lee won't be so slothful in getting his next novel out, although this one will be a hard act to follow, for sure.Everyone assumed (almost) that this loathesome creature was either an ill-tempered Bigfoot or Godzilla on crack, or a combination thereof, but he's worse than either, and for those who don't know, just wait for the surprise!

Now as for you, Lee, don't rest on your laurels by being slothful.Rather, get busy on your next cryptothriller.

Has anyone seen Lee's magnificent artistic talent?Go to his web site and get a breathtaking surprise.The painting on the cover looks like Mondrian's "Red Tree", for one.And many thanks, Lee, for mentioning me in your acknowledgments for badgering you for several years not to be so slothful!

Monsters, Voodoo & Comspiracies
This, the third in this cryptozoological fiction series, is a most worthy addition, indeed. Much more than the story of the Honey Island swamp monster, the protagonist, George Kodiak wends his way not only through the Louisiana swamps, but also into the mysterious world of Haitian voodoo and myriad conspiracies.

Although this is a fiction book, it is very well researched and the story is most timely and captivates the reader to the last page. The characterizations are well written and compelling and this is a must-read for anyone with even a hint of interest in the subjects involved.

This reader is looking forward to the next book in this series. Can't wait!

Best in the series (so far)
This is, so far, the best book in the series. Murphy really hit his stride with this one, the action is non-stop and the characters really come into their own. A+! Can't wait til the next one comes out.

Kodiak is back !
Cryptozoology and adventure fans - it was worth the wait!I was hooked after the first book (Where Legends Roam) and enjoyed the second one (Naitaka) even more.I couldn't wait for the third novel.
Well Kodiak is back and this latest installement is even darker than the previous ones. Once again Mr. Murphy integrates fascinating facts about an unknown creature with fast paced action.The honey Island Swanp monster comes across as malicious and extremely dangerous.Yet it is not the only danger Kodiak faces this time.The Louisianna swamps are the background for this latest adventure and the voodoo elements add a new creepy dimension.I highly recomment this book to all adventure fans.The only question is:when is the next book coming out and what will the next creature be?Ah the cruel wait... ... Read more

Product Description
In the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 100 tribal and 2300 location names, in the United States alone, for a creature that walks in myth and legend throughout the 25,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest. As a young boy on a family camping trip, 9 year old Ian McQuade encountered one of the giant, apelike beings. The experience changed his life forever, limiting his academic prospects and ruining his professional career. Now, twenty years later, an anthroplogist and a Ph.D. in his own right, Dr. McQuade sets out on an urgent mission for Cyril Pritchard and the Chimaera Foundation in pursuit of Bigfoot, without partner Alma Del Nephites. In the process, two of the greatest mysteries about Bigfoot will be uncovered, in a desperate race against time. One must remain a secret at all costs. The other must be revealed, before it is too late... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

The Ultimate Cryptid in a Darn Good Book
Dallas' second cryptofiction book was a real treat to read. Bigfoot is my favorite cryptid and the reason I found Dallas' books in the first place. I looked forward to reading it and I was not disappointed. Dallas made another leap in authorship by adding in character development, something not always seen in books on subjects like this, but it was welcome to me. Once again I was entertained and educated, the hallmarks of good books. Happy reading.

Cryptofiction about the Ulitmate Cryptid
Mr. Tanner's second effort of cryptofiction about the ever elusive Sasquatch is excellent. The start is a little hard to get through because of some redundancies in explaining items that most readers probably wouldn't need, but from there it takes off and the reader has to keep up with the twists and turns much like a real hunt for such a creature would be like. The character development is an added dimension that is rarely seen in many of the novels like this. Then there is the twist at the end. Watch out for that, you'll be reading it twice.

Very well-written Crypto-fiction!
This book follows the adventures of anthropologist Ian McQuade, who had an experience with a Bigfoot as a child. The story revolves around his efforts to find the supposedly mythical creature, leading him to Ohio, where two strange discoveries are found-one, a videotape of a large, white-haired Bigfoot-type creature, the other of the famous "Minnesota Iceman", kept in a meat-packing plant. The search next leads him to Washington State, the Mt. Saint Helens area, where a colony of Bigfoot creatures is attacking a research group who have an old Bigfoot captive. The story climaxes in the caves in and around Mt. Saint Helens, specifically Ape Canyon and Ape Cave. I won't give away anymore details, but it comes to a satisfying conclusion and really leaves the reader satisfied. A highly-recommended book, especially if you are thinking of a Christmas gift.

The Iceman cometh....with the Wendigo!
It you're a Bigfoot fan and like rip-roaring, rollercoaster-ride adventure, this novel is definitely not to be missed.Ian McQuade is back, this time without Alma, and he's assigned by the Chimaera Foundation to go out and discover a Bigfoot.First, he has to retrieve the Minnesota Iceman from a meatpacking plant in Ohio where it has been stored all these years....and he winds up at Mt. St. Helens, encountering an eccentric and aged Bigfoot named Karloff and the even bigger--and meaner--mythical Wendigo, which turns out to be a relict population of the extinct Asian Gigantopithecus, the Ultimate Big Ape.Ian is forced to make major decisions for the expedition, a new experience for him, and he is aided by a new heroine named Billye Carlton, a bellicose and cranky young woman who beats Ian up a couple of times before she gets to like him.And the blockbuster ending is just what I've come to expect from D. L. in his novels.

D. L. has named several of his characters for his friends.Loren Coleman, probably the most celebrated cryptozoologist in the world, appears as himself, as a mentor to Ian.Billye Carlton is, of course, Billye McCarty of Oklahoma, our mutual great friend and D. L.'s relentless editor, who leaves no comma unturned and no misplaced hyphen excused.She does a bang-up job, whipping her author's creativity into its most readable form.Author Lee Murphy appears as a park ranger, and there is even a minor character named Ella Howard, for me!To say I was thrilled at that is a gross understatement.

In "Track", D. L. has not only lived up to my expections after reading "Shadow of the Thunderbird", but surpassed them.Now I'm eagerly awaitng his third novel in the trilogy, this time dealing with lake monsters.Water cryptids don't ring my bell, but I know the new novel will have my complete and extended attention.

Starts wrong, ends great
I began reading The Cryptids Trilogy just for this book. I liked the first book well enough but it could have been better. Here in Tanner's sophomore book, he has improved and I enjoyed it much more. However, I must give both sides of my thoughts.

The first 50 pages or so of the book are very sloppy. It seems like Tanner wrote several different beginnings and then opted to stick them all in. I found many annoying redundant items in these pages. 1. Everytime he used the word 'cryptid' he had to explain what it meant even though he already explained it 4 pages previously. 2. He did the same thing with "El Diablo Rojo, or The Red Devil", man that was bothering me like someone can't translate three simple Spanish words. 3. Most of all, in the first 50 pages, he constantly rehashes the first book (Shadow of the Thunderbird - SotT) and McQuade's camping trip as a boy. You can get away with it maybe twice but then it just got irritable. These are the only reasons why this book gets 4 instead of 5 stars.

Now on to the good, other than the beginning, I truly enjoyed this book. Once you get past the bogged down beginnings, the story is well written and entertaining. Tanner cut down the James Bondish parts of the Chimaera Foundation and focused more on developing McQuade as a character. Ranging from McQuade's despondence over not having Alma around to becoming a lead investigator and team leader facing his childhood fear, the character becomes much more connective than in 'SotT'. Starting off with a filmed sighting in Ohio to the involvement of the Minnesota Iceman, we get some background on Albert Myers, the conspiracy theorist, and are introduced to new character the spitfire Belinda 'Billye' Carlton. From there we moved to Mt St Helens for the rest of the mission.

The story from here is not quite what I expected and therefore I enjoyed it more. He does a great job using a Foundation contact tracker in Bobby Dandridge to inform the lesser knowledgable members of the team about numerous bigfoot encounters (Ostman-kidnapping and Beck-Ape Canyon attack). Trying not to give away the ending, I was very sastisfied with the inclusion of the Wendigo mythos as well. Tanner manages to give a different view of this legend too. I was also grateful that the Ian-Alma-Amelia triangle was dropped to the background and was a bit concerned that Alma would show up to save Ian by the end, thankfully she remains absent. One minor miscue is there was no direct closure issue for Cyril Pritchard which is how the book opens the set-up.

Overall, kudos to you Tanner on an improvement over SotT, and now I am eagerly awaiting book 3, Wake of the Lake Monster. Just stay away from a jumbled beginning. I will definitely read this book again in the future. ... Read more

Product Description
Details some of the sightings of Sasquatch that have been reported in 40 of the United States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This Book was very believable.
After reading this book, it made me a true believer of the phenomena knownas Bigfoot.Each story is thoughtout and has names and dates that aid thestory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

B is for Bush's Big Foot
Populist and quasi-libertarian Jack Robert King is an internet radio announcer who is more than bothered by America's slide down the slippery slope to Nazi Germany.For example, before "The Slide" began, every item in a U.S. store that said "Made In China" came from Taiwan - The Republic of China - FREE China! U.S. shoppers never encountered a Communist item in a store - not from Cuba, the Soviet Union, or Red China. Then "The Slide" began.Americans discovered that "Made in China" was Red China! How in Hades that ever happened was beyond many people's powers of comprehension. Meanwhile, politicians continued to insist that China was turning to capitalism despite all the corporatist evidence to the contrary: slave and child labor, persecutions of Christians and Muslims, and military operations in the Strait of Free China. What is this Amerika we are sliding toward? Jack Robert King wants to know.

He watched Adolf Bush steal the election in Florida, governed by his brother Jeb Bush. Then he watched the Twin Towers be attacked and then bombed, protected by Adolf Bush's other brother Marvin Bush. Then he watched Adolf Bush steal the next election in Ohio through outright corruption while fellow Yale Skull-n-Bones Kerry slinked silently away to the disgust of Ohio Democrats and left it to the Libertarians and Greens to file charges. Jack Robert King wants to know what happened to Ohio and what happened to America?He echoes the sentiments of the late Harry Browne who said "I want my country back"! In King's dedication to his wife in his yet-to-be-published novel 'The Complex Apartment', he wrote: "We thought we lived in the best country in the world, and it turned out to be the worst", adding "It's time to start setting our unthinkable thoughts loose in the town square".

So Jack Robert King hatches a plan to search for his former baseball coach who disappeared while searching for Bigfoot.This plan is hatched before the film "V is for Vendetta" came out, and so King has no warning of what to expect.King just knows that he will find no answers in the cornfields of Iowa, while sensing that they are to be found in the mountains of the Pacific northwest.He books a bus trip and carries along his radio show - Bigfoot Radio.

What follows is a very bizarre bus trip, and an uncensored traveling internet radio show.On Bush's theft of the 2000 election, he says: "To these folks, life is about shaping events to suit your wants".About the Afghanistan invasion and occupation, he says: "And then we bombed Afghanistan in the preamble to the long run-up to the slaughter of the children of Iraq".It was interesting to note how King, like so many Americans, used the word "we" when describing the mayhem of "them".It reminds one of the Ayn Rand book "We, the Living" in which the word "I" had ceased to exist and individuals struggled to say "I" love you.

In searching for Bigfoot, King is really searching for the Lost America.But did it ever really exist?Or are we all guilty of mass insanity?King doesn't know what is happeningand that is precisely what is happening in this book.In the end, King finds some answers and in a sense arrives where he started, yet in the words of T.S. Eliot: "And know the place for the first time".

Looking for Bigfoot in a Search for America
Mike Palecek's Looking for Bigfoot is a no-holds-barred onslaught on the state of the America today. Palecek uses Bigfoot as a metaphor for what we tend to believe about America.

Seemingly semi-autobiographical, the novel's protagonist, Jack Robert King, is a former seminarian who served prison time for protesting the U.S. military. He worked for a while on small town newspapers and now is a stay-at-home husband in Dyersville, Iowa, where he and his family live in the farmhouse from the movie Field of Dreams. Jack is convinced Americans spend too much time on banality to realize that the American dream and American history are the product of disinformation created and controlled by men in the shadows. He starts his own streaming radio program on the Internet called "Bigfoot Radio." Bigfoot Radio streams in more than one sense as it is often a stream of political consciousness from "a blue state mind living in a red state universe."

Jack becomes so obsessed with truth versus perception that his home life is falling apart. When a magazine he's never heard of mysteriously arrives in his mailbox with a cover story about the disappearance of his former baseball coach who became a Bigfoot investigator, Jack decides he needs to find the truth. And what better way than to search for his former coach and Bigfoot? Jack's/Palecek's views are reflected in what Jack tells his listeners as he prepares to embark on his journey:To go looking for Bigfoot is to go in search of the truth about America.

I believe we are being manipulated minute by minute by a news media: television, print radio, that is based solely on profit, rather than the search for truth we imagine.

I believe we Americans have no idea what the truth is about our country. We know every name of the cast of "Survivor" but we do not know about the existence of "Operation Northwoods."

Entertaining, hard to tell the difference between serious and satire
This is an entertaining book, written by a man who has spent time in jail for acts of civil disobedience against the United States military. The main character is Jack Robert King, a social malcontent with an Internet radio show. His emphasis is on all of the crimes, real and alleged, that have been committed by the U. S. federal government over the last 60 years. Conspiracies abound, Jack sees adversaries everywhere, and eventually he takes a bus to the American Northwest, looking for the famed Bigfoot. As he suspects, FBI agents are tracking him and at the end, they kill Jack and his family.
From the text, it is clear that Palecek is a man angry with the government and has been a frustrated writer for some time. That anger has not abated and motivates his writing style, but his frustrations should have been eased by the completion of this book. It moves well, and as a native Iowan, I could relate to his references to locations and events in Iowa. He makes several references to the movie, "Field of Dreams", which was made in Dyersville, Iowa. One of the greatest thrills in my life was batting on that field and coming within a few feet of knocking one into the corn. If you like baseball, then a trip to that field is tantamount to a religious pilgrimage.
While the conspiracies sometimes go way over the line towards absurdity, I enjoyed this book. Sometimes I couldn't decide whether the author was serious or being sarcastic. That is probably a good thing, because it made me think more as I read it.

A Little Healthy Paranoia
Mike Palecek has written before about small-town Iowa, about the people of America, about truth, corruption and lies. He has written about brave individuals who are driven to make a difference. He has created characters who work within a system they hate, who later step outside that system and find doors everywhere are slammed in their faces.

The Last Liberal Outlaw featured newspaper editor Tom Blue, who fought to halt the construction of a prison in his rural home town of Liberal, Iowa. Joe Coffee's Revolution had Joe speaking out against prisons and the military. Twins portrayed a revolutionary priest pitted in lifelong conflict against his brother, a prison warden. In The Truth postman Pete Penny delivers the mail and observes life, all the while trying to figure out who is really responsible for his son's death in Iraq. Each character is unique, yet each has many common characteristics just as each of Palecek's books share both theme and style.

Palecek ties everything together in his latest novel, Looking for Bigfoot, the book I consider to be his best thus far.

Jack Robert King lives in the Dyersville, Iowa home that was used for the movie Field of Dreams. He's a stay-at-home dad whose wife is the principal of the local school. Jack has written for and edited newspapers, but he tired of the censorship. He's worked at the county home but there he tired of the hypocrisy; why argue whether someone who can no longer tell the difference should get wheat or rye bread, while thousands of miles away Americans are killing innocent people who live in Iraq?

Jack is a writer, although he hasn't exactly decided on the topic for the great novel he's been writing for several years. Jack is fighting for America, and he is fighting America. Jack is searching for the truth; he shares what he sees and what he feels with those who read or listen to him. He is "Looking for Bigfoot" and he wants us to look with him by way of his Internet radio show. It's an LFZ (lie free zone) where cover-ups are not allowed.

Years ago, Jack was a pretty good high school ballplayer -- his team lost in the semi's at state -- but his coach left and he never played again. He still remembers that coach, Larry Moore, who was more like a father to him than his biological dad. It's startling when Jack finds a copy of Oregon Magazine in his mailbox, with Larry Moore bigger than life right on the cover. The incident triggers Jack's search for the coach. Looking for Bigfoot, looking for truth, looking for coach -- the searches are simultaneous, and the boundaries are blurred.

Blended in with all that longing is a healthy -- or unhealthy -- dose of paranoia: They don't want the truth to come out, They don't want us to think, and They only want us to follow Their lead. If They will kill presidents and other leaders, if They will even attack Their Own Country to manipulate the people -- surely They won't even blink if They have to kill off a few dissidents who speak out against Them. Paranoid thinking it surely is, but we've all heard the saying: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't someone out to get you.

Looking for Bigfoot is about fighting back, it's about making choices. How can we make a difference in the face of incredible corrupt power? Do we use violence or do we avoid violence? Who shall we adopt as hero or role model: John Brown or Mahatma Gandhi? How far are we willing to go in our fight and how far is the other side willing to go? Who will win? Who will survive?

Friends of mine -- good friends, extremely intelligent friends -- have asked me why I read fiction rather than non. "You only have a certain amount of time to read -- why waste it on something other than facts? Why not read truth instead of stories?" I've felt they are missing the point, but I've had trouble responding to these questions. Mike Palecek has provided an answer in the following conversation, excerpted from the book:
"It's fiction, but it ain't .... Fiction isn't a lie"

"Good fiction is real. It comes from the truth. It is the truth."

"It is, actually, a more accurate way of saying the truth than the actual stating of facts. You take something that you know is the truth, but nobody talks about it and you put it down on paper and make it real. It's ... so liberating ... empowering."

"I can say what the reporters are too chicken to."

"Doesn't mean it gets read, though."

If it sounds as though Looking for Bigfoot is yet another Democrat-inspired rant against Republicans, it's not. Both major American political parties are skewered fairly equally here. Americans are the criminals, Palecek seems to be saying, all of us. Yet Americans, all Americans, are the victims, at the same time.

Jack Robert King is trying to stand up and fight back. His family is afraid and angry. The demons from his past often rear their ugly heads, Jack may question his own sanity. Others certainly do, with or without malicious intent. Even the reader may question Jack's sanity at times.

Will Jack Robert King stand up to the pressure? Will he find Bigfoot -- or is the looking more important than the finding? Will Jack survive the search? Will his family survive? Will the USA survive? Will we, the readers, survive this book?

Mike Palecek poses powerful questions. He has constructed a masterpiece in this novel. It deserves to be read. It's exhilarating and terrifying. It's realer than real.

Review originally published in JANUARY MAGAZINE November 2005
Book selected for the JANUARY MAGAZINE BEST OF FICTION 2005

Conspiracies exposed by creative fiction!!
There is a small, but growing, number of Americans who know
something has gone terribly wrong with our government.They
know that for decades our government has covertly been involved
in election rigging, political assassinations, drug smuggling, and
the training and sponsoring of terrorists.They also know George
W. Bush was never elected, 9-11 was an inside job, and our current
occupation of the middle east is not about spreading democracy.

In short, these people know they are being lied to and they want
the truth. Jack Robert King is one of these people.

In Mike Palecek's latest book, "Looking for Bigfoot", Jack King is
the renegade host of an internet show, 'Bigfoot Radio"; Bigfoot being
a metaphor for all the dark conspiracy myths surrounding our
country that, despite the evidence, are just too frightening to
believe.

Broadcasting from his family home in Iowa, King delivers a daily
rant on the sad state of modern America, delving into controversial
topics with a brilliant mix of sarcastic wit and shocking honesty
that would never be allowed on any mainstream media. Who killed
JFK, RFK, and MLK? What really happened at Waco, Okalahoma City,
and Ruby Ridge? Is America the beacon of freedom or the new
imperial threat to the world?

King understands the peril of his position; most people would
want to shut him up because they consider his opinion paranoid and
unpatriotic, while others would want to shut him up because what
he is saying is true.Yet he continues his show even if it makes him
feel alienated from his country, his community, and even his family.

Then King mysteriously receives a magazine featuring a story
about his childhood mentor who has gone missing in an Oregon
forest while looking for the illusive Bigfoot himself.He decides to
risk his marriage and his sanity by taking a bus trip west on a quest
to find his lost friend and the answers to America's darkest secrets.
Throughout the book you get a sense that author Mike Palecek has
modeled Jack King's character after his own life experiences and
uses King to vent his own frustration at the world from the pages
of a fictional book.

Indeed the novel itself is kind of like Palecek's own "Bigfoot"
broadcast as he tries to reach out to an uninformed public and
demonstrate that behind every outrageous conspiracy theory sits
an ugly nugget of truth that will not just go away if ignored. ... Read more