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Editorial Review Product Description
Texas - or the Lone Star State, as it is affectionately and widely known - is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, and contains both colorful and majestic landscapes that range from desert to plains, and forest to wild canyons. But that is not all: all across Texas there lurks a wide array of monsters, mysterious beasts and diabolical creatures that science tells us do not exist - but that a significant percentage of the good folk of Texas certainly know otherwise. ... Read more Customer Reviews (3) 
Monsters! Head "Em Off At the Pass!
I concur with my Lone Star pal Sharon Whitworth on this, this book is a good'un.
To reflect generally on Texas is to typically think of sprawling cattle ranches, oil derricks pumping "black gold" or "Texas tea" (and James Dean getting covered up with it), longhorn cattle and trail drives "north to the rails", .45 Colt and .44-40 six-guns blasting and smoking, ten gallon hats, chaps, boots, spurs with fancy jingling rowels, bucking broncos and brahma bulls----OR mechanized bucking machines at local roadhouses---chuck wagons, thick slabs of steak, beef jerky, ranch-style beans, Tex-Mex frijoles and tacos, sourdough bread, Comanches, comancheros,Quanah Parker & Sam Bass.
It is also to think of Texas Rangers (and perhaps Chuck Norris, as such), sidewinder rattlesnakes, Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders (hear! hear!),
J.R. Ewing & Southfork Ranch, Davy Crockett & Jim Bowie at the Alamo, and John "Lone Ranger" Reid and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto.
To think of Texas is not typically to ponder the idea of "monsters"---so-called---unless it be of overlarge bears or cougars, or perhaps that great western put-on, the Jackalope---supposedly part jackrabbit and part antelope---and ALL "bull" (and available for purchase from creative taxidermists statewide!).
Yep. Thinking of Texas and monsters together is usually "just not done". Duke Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance in "Rio Bravo" is a much more vital image than is that of a satyr-like "goat man", but a Texas goat man IS alleged to be a true fact, while Sheriff Chance is NOT. And Bigfoot, or other wildmen of sorts, may be actual realities whereas the vast fictional cattle ranch called the Red River D is just a tall tale. And, while no ex-confederate soldier named Ethan Edwards ever went hunting and killing through the Comancheria, searching for his kidnapped
niece, Debbie (who looked suspiciously like Natalie Wood), glowing night-time balls of "ghostlight" CAN be seen in the Big Thicket country of East Texas, and sometimes these ghostlights MAY actually materialize into bigfoot-like creatures there in the Ticket along the route of Bragg Road.
Something to think about while you munch down some pork barbecue.
This slim book of less than 150 pages is a compendium of Texas monster sighting
lore,covering creatures and reported strange happenings, going back to even before the Alamo. Put together in collaboration by Texas residents (and Fortean cryptozoology researchers) Ken Gerhard and Nick Redfern, Monsters of Texas is a fast, breezy, thoroughly entertaining read that serves up a smorgasbord collection of reputed Lone Star encounters with giant turtles,giant catfish, black panthers,
goat-man creatures (one of whom who could reportedly toss an automobile tire some 500 yards), giant hairy himinids of the bigfoot/skunk ape persuasion, walk-like-a-man "manwolf" or "dogman" THINGS that are about as close to the folkloric werewolf as you can get without locating any transformational human "suspects" in the neighborhood. There are huge condor-like birds to consider, too (Thunderbirds?)---these as big as small private aircraft---and even airborne whatsits that resemble leathery-winged mesozoic pterosaurs like pteranodons and pterodactyls.
Critters to definuitely raise some eyebrows across the board.
And the telling of these "tales" (?) come from witnesses---experiencers---who sound very credible indeed. Some stories, from old newspaper editions, sound a bit tongue-in-cheek----like leg-pulls (like a "wildman" wo broke into houses while people were not at home and "ate FRIED chicken---RAW", but neither Gerhard nor Redfern try to sell the reader on these more obvious "tall ones". They just include them for the fun of it. (I'm still wondering how one eats fried chicken raw).
Some items herein you wish were elaborated upon more. A Texan named "Walter" had a "wolf-man" stalking in ranch and when he tried to track it he discovered a carved "werewolf" head on the ground near where this thing had "manifested"----materialized? There is a photo of this stone in the book.
Creepy ideah. huh? Well and truly. But what Nick Redfern fails to tell you is that
he was GIVEN this stone by that rancher after he talked to the man about possible black magic connections between the stone and the "werewolf" (referencing the notorious "Hexham Heads" incident in the UK in 1972 where a pair of "witch heads" found in a back yard saw the materialization---inside a private residence---of a gigantic "wolf man" who terrified a Hexham family. Poltergiest activity seeming to center on these heads led to the finders getting RID of these things, and a scientist who took them had similar troubles and then SHE dumped the heads).
And, in the 21st century, SO DID NICK REDFERN! Bizarre occurences in his home seeming to center on the Texas werewolf stone led HIM to get rid of HIS, also!
The same thing happened to the doyen of "wereolves" in the U.S., Linda Godfrey of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, the author of the books "The Beast of Bray Road" and of "Hunting The American Werewolf". Poltergeist-type activity seemingly connected to a "wolfen stone"---a carved "brick"---in her possession led Godfrey to ditch HER little keepsake as well. In the cases of both Redfern and Godfrey the weird happenings seemed to cease once the little wolfie carvings hit the out door.
I wish Nick had mentioned this in his chapter of Monsters of Texas, because, to me, it serves to UP the creep factor considerably.
Of course, you CANNOT do a Monsters of Texas book THESE days without mentioning the SO-CALLED Texas Chupacabras. Most of the world guffaws at stories of mangey dogs being taken for a bipedal flying creature from Puerto Rico, and can make some snickering remarks about the credulity factor in the Texan mentality. HOWEVER, as Ken Gerhard makes clear in his analysis of this peculiar situation, there IS something downright ODD going on here.
There are these THINGS roaming around Texas that are kind of like dogs and kind of like coyotes, but very WEIRD "spins" on those animals. They are almost grotesque looking, with emaciated looking bodies and limbs, out of proportion legs (sometimes the back legs are longer than the front, and then vice versa), long, ratlike tails, and teeth in their mouths that often consist of nothing but lower and upper incisors (though not always). They generally have a contorted, hunched over posture and seem to live in burrows in the earth. There is usually a short black fringe of hair that runs along the back of the neck, part way down the spine, but these things are mostly DE-NUDED of hair, and, if hair IS present,it is very thin, wispy, and short and almost not there at all. Mostly what one sees with them is wrinkly grayish skin with a slight blue tinge to it---and this is what leads most cryptozoological researchers INTERNATIONALLY to term them BLUE DOGS, rather than the "chupacabras" handle thrown around by the U.S. media.
The "chupacabras" malarkey began because a wave of animal deaths began in Texas wherein the victims---usually chickens---were drained of blood (as were other small animals) in a manner very similar to what was seen in the true chupacabras incidents of Puerto Rico. In some cases, in close proximity in time and locations, these BLUE DOGS were spotted and a bit of a presumptive leap was made intellectually between these odd animals (their DNA is canid) and these mysterious
exanguinations. This, however, only constitutes CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence and in no way establishes that blue dogs are "vampires" (though SOMETHING surely appears to be). Blue dogs aren't "impossible to bring down" like the real chupacabras seems to be. They get shot, hit and killed by cars, poisoned, and some just plain die. Several have been autopsied and no chupacabras-like "straw" for sucking blood has ever been found in one, nor are their teeth hollow and "vampiric". And, far from being bloated on the blood of "victims", THESE things seem strangely bloodless THEMSELVES.They seem to have not nearly the blood content in their bodies that would be expected.
Their "mange" is also a strange "mange", if, indeed, it IS mange. It does not evidence much at all in the way of skin irritation or inflamation. There are no "hot spot" or scaling or much of anything suggesting a virulent dermatitis.
The hair is not off in PATCHES, either---as you'd expect with mange. It is UNIFORMLY gone, in a strangely benign manner.
So what GIVES here? Good question. What ARE these things? Yet ANOTHER good question! Is a "blue dog" some kind of MUTANT? A genetic freak? They certainly aren't your usual run-of-the-mill bow wows.
Read this book and check all these reputed weirdos out----including the blue dog "chupacabras". You will enjoy the read and you should find a great deal of this quite thought provoking. I know I, for one, will not---after this---be near as hard on the "Texas Chupacabras" as I have been in the past.
I dunno about these "goat men" though!
Monsters of Texas
Nick Redfern and Ken Gerhard have really gone out of their way to provide their fans with a wonderfully researched read."Monsters of Texas" will have you sleeping with the lights on.Do not hesitate to get this book, not even for a second!
A very enjoyable overview of the more monstrous denizens of Texas!
Fun, fast-paced, and very enjoyable, "Monsters of Texas" by Ken Gerhard and Nick Redfern chronicles the legendary monsters rumored to make the Lone Star State home.Covering such local legends as Big Bird, the Lake Worth Monster, El Chupacabras, and many, many more, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in the stranger side of Texas. Not only does it recount some classic monster tales, but also showcases newer ones and sheds light on some older stories as well.Highly recommended. - Sean Whitley, Writer/Director, "Southern Fried Bigfoot"
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