Vintage UFO, Paranormal, and Cryptid Book Collection

Those of you who know me well, know that I collect lots of books about the unusual. I am quite proud of my collection of nearly 250 books on all kinds of strange phenomena. Among these, I actually own quite a few that are fairly old and rare. If you listen to my show, I actually mention my collection quite regularly so I thought my followers might be interested in a small peek into my library.

Here are a few highlights from my collection:

• They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers by Gray Barker, Second Edition, signed by the author (1956)

• Invisible Residents by Ivan T. Sanderson, First Edition (1970)

• Book of Great Jungles by Ivan T. Sanderson, First Edition (1965)

• The Flying Saucers Are Real by Donald Keyhoe, First Edition Paperback (1950)

• Man, Myth, and Magic, all 24 volumes, (1970)

• Practical Zoölogy by Alvin Davison, Ph.D. (1906)

The last one isn't about unexplained phenomena but it is still the oldest book I own and a testament as to how far zoology has come since 1906. 

Mothman Festival #15: A Riotous Good Time

As many of you should be aware, the 15th annual Mothman Festival was this past weekend. I attended and had a wonderful time at it. The fest was huge this year, estimations as to how many attended range from 9,000 to 11,000 people. Honestly, that is unparalleled anywhere else!
The lineup of speakers was also jam-packed with some of the biggest names in the field: Ken Gerhard, Nick Redfern, Loren Coleman, Stan Gordon, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, George Dudding, Joedy Cook, and Fred Saluga are just some of the many who spoke this weekend.
There was also numerous excellent vendors at which I spent way too much of my money at. I bagged much more loot than last year, I got a total of 13 new books (including Nick Redfern's Nessie and Women in Black and Ken Gerhard's A Menagerie of Mysterious Beasts), a couple t-shirts from Eerie Eric (the Bob Ross of Bigfoot!) and many assorted stickers for my laptop. Out of everything I purchased, the coolest thing that I now own is a second edition copy of Gray Barker's famous They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers which is actually autographed by Barker himself!

I had a blast catching up with Stan, Ken, Nick and everyone else. I also got a chance to meet some awesome people; Tyler Houck (who runs the excellent blog Tyler's Cryptozoo), Sean Forker (co-host of Arcane Radio) and Robert Robinson (who wrote the awesome book Legend Tripping). I also got to visit the TNT area and check out one of the famous 'Igloos'.

I had a great time and would recommend the festival to anyone who is interested in learning more about the Mothman or anything else that goes bump in the night.

Nick Redfern and I

Tyler and I hanging out