A confession: I love Forteana!
You read it right. I do; I love UFOs, I love mysteries, I loooooove cruptozoology, and I even (used to) love Ancient Aliens (gasp!). I love watching “bigfoot” and other TV shows and documentaries about strange topics.
Let’s unpack this a bit.
I always joke with my wife that I am the idiot who stays tuned when they go to commercials right after saying:
COMING UP NEXT: WILL THEY FINALLY REVEAL THE DEFINITVE PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF BIGFOOT?”
I know they will not, but I “stay tuned” nonetheless.
These topics entertain and intrigue me; always have, always will, and I believe that in some cases there is a kernel of reality within most claims of high strangeness. Before I go any further, I want to state that I would never mock or make fun of sincere people who experience something that flies in the face of “normality”. You see, I have people very close to me who have gone through quite strange experiences, people who have absolutely no reason to lie to me. So I believe that they saw something.
However, I have a scientific mind by temperament, training, and profession, a mind in quite fine shape (I hope), and in the realm of science, anecdotes may be suggestive and can even guide research, but it takes more than anecdotes to actually demonstrate the existence of anything. Take UFOs/UAPs for example. Even though I know that there’s a statistical certainty of life “out there”, I am quite skeptical about aliens being the reason for *all* UAP events. I strongly think that in most cases represent very human-made secret aircraft, even though I have to admit that recent events give me more than pause (a story for a future post). Maybe tomorrow I’ll see an undeniably extraterrestrial craft and I will change my mind about them, but not today.
Moving on, don’t even get me started about Ancient Aliens! I used to love that show, and the main premise still intrigues me; heck, it even intrigued Carl Sagan, so I think I am in good company. By the way, the Sagan/Ancient Alien idea connection is not new. Just read his books. Anyway, I’ve said this elsewhere, at first the show was pretty good. A little soft on the actual science and quite strong in less-than-sound speculation, but overall, it was all right; that is, until things got really out of hand. As an example, the show implied that at some point in our history, we humans were not smart enough to come up with the pyramids and agriculture on our own (we were), but then as the show developed suddenly we were not even stupid enough to “create” Hitler and the Crusades by ourselves (we were, and sadly, still are). I am sure that you know what I mean.
Then there is Bigfoot and related beasts, whatever they are. This is a topic that deeply intrigues me. Now, and going on to the review at hand, I have to state without any doubt whatsoever that I am quite grateful that I have never seen any of the entities that Ms. Godfrey describes in her excellently written book. I truly do not know how would I react, and I am in no rush to find out.
Anyway, in Monsters Among Us Godfrey chronicles many cases telling stories of alleged sightings of well, monsters, by reliable, serious people. Some of these witnesses do not look for publicity and won’t even allow to be identified, which speaks of their sincerity and gives extra value to their testimony. I do not know what they saw, but in my mind, it is undoubtable that something strange was seen indeed. For sure, my curious mind wants to know what these supposed entities are, but from a safe distance!
This is a well-researched book, that catches the attention of the reader and does not let go (now, I experienced this myself!). Some of her stories truly made me wonder… What if?
As a matter of personal preference, the book is weakest when speculating about the possible “spiritual” nature of the (animals?) seen in these stories. I am also quite skeptical about speculations about portals and other dimensions as the origin of these beasts. These two ideas are actually well outside of the realm of accepted science (I never know what these two things mean in the context of high strangeness!) and I do not want to say anything else in detail lest I give book details away, so I will not elaborate any more on this.
That being said, the book was really good; again, well-written, entertaining, and thought-provoking, and after all, these are some of the main reasons why people read anything; am I wrong? Bottom line: If you like these topics, read this book, it will not disappoint.
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