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The smell was like oil on hot metal. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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The book begins with the Mothman case specifically, but after that I found it became somewhat piece-meal; "Mothman" rather moth-like itself, flits and flutters around all sorts of subjects as if Coleman was putting down a constant flow of thoughts on paper, and that's how it ended up. If that's the case, it would also explain the lack of proof-reading; letters missing out of words, incorrect punctuation and spelling and other typographical errors stand out in a work that should be of a good academic calibre. His many references to fellow investigator Keel (the main investigator of Mothman, who features heavily in the book) also seem to wander away from journalistic appreciation into the realm of starry-eyed fandom.
Coleman briefly adopts Keel's style of reading significance and correspondences (not unlike Crowley's occult correspondences) into everything, and on numerous occasions - particularly in playing with the significance of numbers and dates - veers into questionable realms of "Keelian" excitement. For me, learning that June 24th was not only the day that Kenneth Arnold spotted the first recorded "Flying Saucer", but it was also the day that the Spanish Inquisition released Galileo ... wasn't much of a revelation. I am sure one could pick any date and follow it through history, finding weird stuff that happened on that same day of the year.
Nevertheless, Coleman has amassed a veritable library of anecdotes and stories of fortean and anomalous events and occurences. Many of them are indeed anecdotal, but there are plenty of them which have multiple witnesses or were otherwise recorded and appear to be genuine. Despite the chaos and the love of coincidences there is also a rich seam of cryptozoological v paranormal skepticism on display. Coleman takes a good look at erroneous prophecies, as well as being a clear advocate of wanting to bring some sightings out of the realm of the supernatural, and into the arena of "undiscovered creatures".
"Mothman" also boasts an excellent appendix of the "weird sightings/events" hotspots of America, a state-by-state guide to areas of fortean interest; next time I visit the USA, I'll be taking it with me.
All in all, Mothman & Other Curious Encounters is a good read and an interesting delve into the widespread sightings of the mothman around the time of the Silver Bridge disaster. It is spoiled slightly by a patchy flow of chapters and information and irritating typos. But it's a worthwhile and enjoyable read.
Apparently published to capitalize on the film `The Mothman Prophecies' (the back of the book displays a prominent ad for the film), this book is a fun read, great for a rainy evening. And, for those unfamiliar with such Fortean phenomena as Mothman, The Flatwoods Monster, thunderbirds and other such critters, this is a good overview. However, for those who have read John Keel's Mothman Prophecies, Our Haunted Planet or Strange Creatures from Time and Space, or who are familiar with the books of the late Charles Fort (namesake of the word Fortean), there is little new to be found here.
Within the book's 200 pages are nine chapters, two appendices and a section on `Mothman bibliography and other resources' (did you know you could order an "action Mothman figure"?). The chapters aggregate `types' of creatures, such as `Winged Weirdies', `Mothman' and `Lizardmen'. And, given the influence of John Keel's work on Coleman, one chapter is even called `Keel's Children'. In fact, this book arguably should have been sub-subtitled `An Homage to John Keel'. One whole appendix is a direct re-print of reported Mothman sightings lifted from Keel's Strange Creatures from Time and Space. Without Keel's contributions, this would likely have been a pretty slim volume indeed.
As mentioned, this is an entertaining way to spend a few hours, not requiring much in the way of deep thinking. The style of the book is breezy and engaging, although it could have benefited from better proofreading (the late ufologist Gray Barker was sometimes referred to as Gray, other times as `Gary'). For those who are interested in a solid introduction to the arcane field of `cryptozoology', this is a great place to start, and for those who are generally familiar with the material, this is a good refresher. It's certainly worth the modest price.
I found myself suspecting this particular volume was slapped together under this title to generate extra sales in the wake of the Mothman movie. The Mothman himself takes up less than a third of the book. No significant info is added to what John Keel wrote in his 1975 book (and a good deal of that left out, as not relevant to Coleman's real theme.) We do get some neat new Keel quotes and anecdotes that spotlight his startling personality. And that's fun, but the same personality was fully on display in Keel's book, too.
So if it's not "about" Mothman, what is it about? It is a brief Fortean treatise on cryptozoology - the study of animals, especially large animals, unknown to science. It touches on well known stars like Sasquatch and Nessie, but concentrates on flaps in which cryptozoology bumps up against "high weirdness," and seems to call for investigations as much by unnatural historians as by natural ones. Thunderbirds, Cupachabras, giant black dogs with fiery eyes, and lizard men predominate.
There are no footnotes, but there's a good bibliography. There's also an odd 18-page index of "places of high strangeness" in the U.S. and Canada. It's odd in that it's just a list of names, by state and province, with no indication of what's weird about any one of them. There are bound to be several within driving distance of your home... I guess you just drive there, stake your tent, and try to be ready for anything.
Excellent appendices give subsequent researchers a chance to follow in the footsteps - a list of Mothman sightings, a list of sites of American high wierdness and a comprehensive bibliography. If there's one thing missing it's pictures - but that said what could be shown in a work of this nature? There are no pictures of these entities and I don't want to look at endless pictures of bridges and towns, so that's not a complaint merely a comment - mind it does have a seriously cool cover.
Apparently there were some typos that crept into the first edition but these have all been corrected in subsequent print runs.
All told this is an excellent book which I can wholeheartedly recommend to the Forteans, cryptozoologists and lovers of the weird out there.
If only the movie had been this good...
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