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Lair of the Beasts: Monsters in 2010

A Creature Calendar for 2010.

By Nick Redfern January 09, 2010

Man-Monkey, in search of the British BigFoot, by monster hunter author Nick Redfern(2007).
© cfz

Well, as yet another year passes by and a new one duly begins, what, you may ask, does 2010 hold for us in terms of cryptozoology and the search for unknown animals, such as Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabras, Ogopogo and more? The answer is actually quite a lot, indeed.

Next week, for example, sees the start of the new series of the History Channel’s Monster Quest show, which has really brought the subject of cryptozoology to a whole new, mainstream audience. I’m very pleased to say that the new series promises some extremely good episodes indeed, including in-depth shows on both Bigfoot and the infamous Mothman.

It was this latter creature, of course, that was made famous in the 2002 movie, The Mothman Prophecies that starred Richard Gere, and which was based on the book of the same name written by the recently-deceased author and legendary paranormal expert, John Keel.

In addition, I’ll have a couple of new cryptozoological books published over the course of the next two months. The first is titled Monsters of Texas: Strange Creatures of the Lone Star State, and which is co-written with fellow monster-hunter, good friend and author Ken Gerhard.

The book is basically a comprehensive study of a whole range of unidentified animals seen across Texas over the course of the last couple of centuries, including the aforementioned Bigfoot, lake-monsters, the Chupacabras, werewolves, and even out-of-place animals, such as wallabies, big-cats and much more, too.

My second book of the new year will be Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Staffordshire. A couple of years ago, Jonathan Downes – the director of the British-based Center for Fortean Zoology, the world’s only full-time group dedicated to the study and investigation of unknown animals – embarked upon a highly ambitious project: namely, to publish an in-depth and extensive series of books (under the Mystery Animals of the British Isles banner) that would chronicle in detail the many and varied monsters seen and reported throughout the whole of Britain.

So far, the books that have been published in this series include titles on the counties of Kent, Northumberland and the Western Isles. And, although I now live in Dallas, Texas, I’m originally from Staffordshire. So, with that fact firmly in mind, Jon asked me if I was interested in writing the book in the series that would cover that particular county. Of course, I quickly and enthusiastically said “Yes.”

As is the case with the Monsters of Texas book, Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Staffordshire will feature within its pages countless accounts of weird critters seen in the area, including large, unidentified winged creatures that sound suspiciously like gargoyles and pterodactyls; Sasquatch-style beasts seen throughout the dark and thick woods of Staffordshire; marauding big-cats on the loose; alligators reportedly encountered in the county’s deep waterways; bloodthirsty wolf-men howling at the sight of a full-moon; and a whole range of other animals of the unidentified kind that have no business at all prowling around the British Isles.

In addition, during the month of August of this year, the Center for Fortean Zoology will be holding the latest in a long line of its annual Weird Weekend gigs, which promises an absolute wealth of first-class lectures and presentations from the world’s leading authorities on strange beasts, including Neil Arnold – acclaimed author of the books Monster! and Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Kent – and Richard Freeman, the CFZ’s in-house zoologist, and an authority on dragon legends, on the Russian equivalent of Bigfoot known as the Almasty, and on the mystery animals of Japan.

And, of course, there’s sure to be a wealth of reports surfacing throughout the year strongly suggesting that within the darkened corners of our world that society and civilization have yet to intrude upon, animals of a truly unknown kind continue to lurk and roam, blissfully unaware of the controversy they provoke within the world’s zoological community, within the field of cryptozoology, and for the media, too.

Stay tuned.

Nick Redfern is the author of many books, including: Science Fiction Secrets; Memoirs of a Monster Hunter; Contactees; and There’s something in the Woods.