Owlman and Others [Paperback]

Apparently modeled after John Keel's classic The Mothman Prophecies (1976), Jonathan Downes' The Owlman and Others: 30th Anniversary Edition (2006) is a rambling, disjointed, and occasionally incoherent effort broadly focused on the relatively recent paranormal phenomena and corresponding folklore of Cornwall. Since the book has been published by The Centre for Fortean Zoology, which Downes "founded in 1992," the book is essentially an exercise in self-publishing. The misleading "30th Anniversary" tagline refers not to the 30th edition of the book (which was first published in 1997), as one might logically assume, but to the year of the first reported sighting of the title entity.

Revolving around the purported experiences of several groups of adolescent girls who encountered a man-sized, bird-like creature near Mawnan Church in the Seventies, the book relies heavily on the life, 'work,' and testimony of self-proclaimed "wizard" Anthony 'Doc' Shiels, the well-known fortean raconteur and hoaxer with whom the author has clearly been fascinated, if not childishly enamored, for most of his adult life.

While Downes has nothing but praise and appreciation for Shiels, the objective evidence which Downes presents to support his appraisal is sorely lacking: Shiels seems to be one of those bizarrely and colorfully dressed con men who haunt public squares across the world, hoping to attract the attention of gullible strangers by juggling, dangling marionettes, playing the mandolin, or bombastically emoting about witches, ghosts, and unicorns. Shiels, ever the conspicuous trickster, even wore the requisite 'large and funny hat' during his public "monster-raising" heyday in the Seventies. The back-tracking, story-changing, slippery 'Doc' Shiels depicted here seems like an utterly useless source of reliable or trustworthy information of any kind.

Downes admits that Shiels has confessed to fabricating the initial, and pivotal, stories in what has become the Owlman mythos, though Downes also acknowledges that Shiels has also, over the decades, retracted such confessions, depending, it seems, upon his mood in a given moment or the amount of alcohol he has consumed. Presumably because he thought it a clever appellation, Shiels continually referred to the apparition as "His Owliness," giving potential readers an indication of how seriously the subject was considered by him. All of which suggests that the Owlman is not a part of Cornish folklore, but Cornish fakelore.

The book is also overshadowed by Downes' impossible-to-overlook grandstanding concerns with self-promotion and with establishing a high profile reputation for himself "as one of the UK's very few professional cryptozoologists," and hence it's no wonder that the ostensibly vital subject of the volume suffers. Many of Downes' claims about his credentials are not only extraneous, but add to the book's considerably defensive, petulant, and hyper-sensitive tone: of what significance is it to the book's audience that Downes once interviewed Led Zepplin's John Paul Jones, previously "worked for one ex-pop star," or believes Bruce Springsteen to be "massively overrated"? The overall tone suggests that when Downes doesn't get his way, he begins smashing chairs, tables, and china.

Downes has clearly given a great amount of his personal time and earnest attention to this project, which makes it all the sadder that The Owlman and Others doesn't come to more, and to more disciplined and sober conclusions.

Since Downes considers, though some only in passing, water monsters, pixies, ley lines, witches, haunted roads and local legends, animal mutilations, the Jersey Devil, Mothman, UFOs, "psychic backlashes," tulpas, Max Ernst, Rudyard Kipling, Edward Lear, and Surrealism among other topics, readers who enjoy a soft, uncritical 'kitchen sink' approach to the subject of paranormal speculation may find the profusely illustrated The Owlman and Others: 30th Anniversary Edition an eccentric, and even charmingly old-fashioned, compendium of the bizarre.

Those approaching it with more serious expectations are very likely to find it disappointing at best, and useless from an intellectual or factual perspective, at least where the fundamental facts in the Owlman case are concerned.

For some time I have wanted to read this book, and I wasn't disappointed when I finally got my paws on a copy in October 2010.
My purchase followed my own visit to the infamous Mawnan Church, an ancient stone structure set within an even more ancient earthwork of unknown origin.
The place radiates weirdness, have no doubt, so a disturbing Halloween Eve visit demanded a follow-up with the most comprehensive treatment of the Owlman story to date.
One of the highlights (which draws some unfair criticism on this page) of a Downes tome is his engaging writing style, which effortlessly slips between the subject at hand and Downes' own many and varied life experiences. You quickly get the impression that things have never been dull in the Downes household.
Indeed, as the HQ of the CFZ, it's a hubbub of activity at all hours, and a magnet for strange reports and Fortean fellowship.
One of more than 50 books published by the CFZ Press, The Owlman And Others is a little bit rock 'n' roll, and a little bit Fortean with no small amount of mystery, and a dash of the Trickster thrown in...a mix that ensures a fresh, reasonably edgy approach to the material at hand.
For the Owlman conundrum, like most Fortean fare, isn't cut-and-dried.
Fakelore or folklore? A conjured creation or something much older roused from its ancient slumber?
Read this engaging tome and be engaged, enlightened, and maybe even a tad frightened!

I still enjoyed this book. Perhaps it was a combination of being set in a part of the world I love reading about anyway, the unusual Fortean subject that I had never heard of before, the bizarre-ness of the Sheils family, or the personal touch provided by the author - but I found it interesting and worth reading.