Memoirs of a Monster Hunter: A Five-Year Journey in Search of the Unknown
256
Memoirs of a Monster Hunter: A Five-Year Journey in Search of the Unknown
256Paperback
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Overview
In this follow-up to his wildly successful Three Men Chasing Monsters, paranormal investigator and author Nick Redfern chronicles his surreal road-trip through the United States and beyond in search of all-things monstrous. His strange adventures lasted five years and saw him doggedly pursuing a menagerie of creatures, including gargoyles, giant birds, and what some believe are living dinosaurs.
Follow Redfern as he:
- Explores the El Yunque rainforest of Puerto Rico in search of the terrifying Chupacabras: a razor-clawed, glowing-eyed beast that is part giant bat and part vampire.
- Seeks out the Goat Man: a menacing creature that evokes imagery of both demons and the fabled cloven-hoofed Centaurs of ancient mythology, and is said to inhabit the forests of East Texas.
- Chases after what many people believe are real-life, flesh-and-blood werewolves that surface from hidden lairs and prowl the countryside when the Moon is full.
Part X-Files, part Crocodile Hunter with a mix of Jurassic Park and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Memoirs of a Monster Hunter takes you on a roller-coaster ride into the unknown. Read personal accounts of the monsters that inhabit your wildest imagination and your worst nightmares. The creatures you were told couldn't possibly exist, really do.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781564149763 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 08/14/2007 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 551,107 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.25(w) x 8.25(h) x 3.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Story Begins
At around 8.30 a.m., two days after arriving in sunny Laughlin, I entered the elevator that would take me down stairs to the floor where I was due to lecture in approximately two hours. Having done so, I strolled into the adjacent restaurant and grabbed a bowl of cornflakes and a glass of orange juice. I had been to the United States previously, but had never quite realized until now how much of an overriding love affair Americans have with food. Truly gargantuan figures dressed in baggy XXXL t-shirts, shorts, and baseballs caps, who were too fat to walk or even waddle, rode merrily around the restaurant in little, motorized carts, filling their already-overflowing plates with mountains of bacon, sausage, and eggs, while simultaneously gulping down gallons of diabetes-inducing soda. And then they went back for seconds.
I watched this gastronomic, artery-blocking atrocity with hypnotic fascination for about 20 minutes, and then made my way to the conference room and took a seat near the back. I vaguely recognized a few faces in the audience from my previous time at Laughlin in 1998, but there was no one around who I could truly say with certainty that I knew. None of the English guys were there yet. So, I had one last look at my lecture notes, then settled back to watch the first talk, which was probably the most hilariously entertaining one of the week, delivered in fine style by crop circle researcher Andy Thomas, a man who, I have no hesitation in saying, could easily have carved for himself a career as a stand-up comic.
As I continued to scan the room, I noticed two women walk through the doors and head in my direction. I did not know it at the time, but it was the mother and daughter from Texas. "I wouldn't mind a bit of that for the week," I said to nobody but me as the daughter approached.
"Is anyone sitting here?" she asked.
"No, you're fine to sit there," I replied with a smile, checking out the rest of her buxom form.
"Thanks," she purred quietly, in a fashion that almost had me salivating.
I heard her mumble something like, "That guy has a speaker's badge on," and I could see the pair watching me and glancing sideways. At that moment, all three of us burst out laughing when a strange looking fellow walked into the conference room with an aluminum pyramid-shaped device perched precariously upon his balding head.
"Why does he have that on?" asked the girl, her eyes widening in amazement and shocked awe as the odd figure shuffled toward us.
"Maybe he's expecting bad weather," I offered. Again, we all laughed and I caught the girl's eye for several seconds. Well, the day was getting off to a pretty good start, I thought. Then it was time for Andy to present his lecture, and silence descended upon the audience. Damn, I thought, what a time for the conversation to be curtailed. And on top of that, before Andy's lecture was over, I was required to go behind the stage to get ready for my own talk. When I finally got off the podium after my 90-minute lecture, I quickly headed to the back of the room, but the pair was gone. Completely vanished. I cursed silently. Still, there was nothing I could do about it, and I headed off to a small room adjacent to the conference area, where I was due to be interviewed for a cable TV show on UFOs. As I reached the room, I saw the girl about 20 feet away; she was heading back to the auditorium.
"Hi, I enjoyed your talk," she said, still purring like a kitty in heat. I was just about to reply when a voice shouted: "Nick, we need you — now!" It was Ted Loman, the one-eyed, patch-wearing producer of the aforementioned UFO show. The gods of fate were definitely working against me today, I thought. I looked at the girl, shrugged my shoulders, and headed off with Ted. I glanced back and caught her smile once again, before she vanished into the darkened depths of the lecture room. I might be able to salvage things, after all. But as events transpired, I didn't have to. Around 4 p.m., researcher and author Lloyd Pye came up to me and said: "Nick, there's a girl in the audience asking to meet you."
"Is she American? A tall blonde?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's her," Lloyd replied.
Cool, I thought. I must have done something right, after all. There was a 15-minute break between lectures, and I followed Lloyd through the milling crowd and spied the girl and the older woman, still near the back of the room. "Nick, this is Dana. Dana, this is Nick," said Lloyd, matter-of-factly, and then promptly walked off!
But the good thing about Lloyd's brief introduction was that it allowed the two of us to break the ice ourselves. It was, of course, all small talk to begin with. I learned that the woman with the girl named Dana was her mother, Alex, and that they would be here for the whole week. The whole week: I said a silent "Hooray!" I had a prearranged meeting later that evening with Ryan Wood, a researcher overwhelmingly obsessed with the Roswell "crashed UFO" controversy, who I had met in England back in 2000, and Graham Birdsall of UFO Magazine, and so I asked Dana: "Why don't we meet in the restaurant around 9 p.m.?" She said yes and the world was already a happier place.
At precisely nine, I entered the restaurant, and there she was waiting patiently. She had already eaten with her mother, but I was famished and chomped down a chicken sandwich. We split an ice-cream sundae and then headed for the bar and drinks. As we sat and chatted, it transpired that, although from other ends of the world, we had shared a lot of common ground. We were exactly the same age, we both had an interest in various aspects of the paranormal, and both of us were big fans of loud music. While my tastes ran — and still run — to punk rock and not much else, Dana was a lover of classic American rock. We sat for hours chatting, getting to know each other, discussing our respective lives and cultures, our respective hopes and dreams, and had a damned fine time.
Around midnight, we were done with the drinks and I asked Dana if she would like to take a walk. I was, of course, delighted when she said yes. It was a starlit night, and the moon shone brightly as we exited the hotel and took a slow stroll down to the water's edge. Indeed, the atmosphere became one of almost magical proportions when a small rabbit crossed our path barely 3 feet in front of us and just sat there, staring at us, seemingly unconcerned by our presence. At the same moment, a large bird circling the hotel was caught in the glare of the powerful spotlight that was positioned on the rooftop of the hotel, and it took on a proud and magnificent golden glow. We smiled at each other, and continued to walk and talk. After a while, we reached a small bench, sat a while, and watched the river's water gently splash against the rocks, as what sounded like a million crickets chatted excitedly to each other. I had no idea of the nature of their conversations, but if they were similar to ours, they were doing just fine.
After 20 minutes or so, we headed back to the hotel and I asked Dana if I could do something. "What's that?" she asked. "This," I replied and I held her in my arms and kissed her gently — at first, at least. As the passion levels rose we headed upstairs. Yep, things were definitely looking good. Outside of her hotel room door, the Anglo-American lip-lock was renewed in fine fashion. But try as I might, I could not get Dana to come back to my hotel room for, ahem, "coffee." Nevertheless, it was a perfect end to a perfect night; we said our goodnights and retired to our respective beds. I'm sure I spent the whole night sleeping with a smile on my face.
The next day was a fine one: a small lunch and then an Italian dinner in one of the several restaurants that the Flamingo was home to. We wandered around the casino awhile, and I expressed my sheer amazement at the truly huge number of octogenarian ladies, all smoking like chimneys, and who, like preprogrammed robots, were pumping dollar bill after dollar bill into the flashing slot machines. What was most peculiar was the uncanny fact that these gambling grannies seemed never to sleep: the same ones were always there, regardless of the hour, always inserting their hard-earned dollars into the money-munching machines. The rest of the week was a good one, filled with romantic dinners and private moments in which two people who had met as strangers were now opening up their lives to each other.
It was after we had been at the conference for about three days that very strange rumors began to circulate. Indeed, they were rumors that sounded as though they emanated from the paranoid mind of a certified maniac. And perhaps they did. Whispered tales spread like wildfire among the attendees about people who had been "implanted in the backs of their necks" with alien-originated tracking devices. Moreover, those same implants allowed the aliens to control the person in question, to the extent that they could be "programmed" to become Manchurian Candidate-style assassins. Even worse: Something similar had supposedly occurred at the 2000 event 12 months previously, and several people who had returned this year were "not what they appeared to be." They had been "replaced" by "alien clones," again programmed to fulfill the intentions of some nefarious, extraterrestrial agenda.
It sounded akin to something out of the 1950s sci-fi movies Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars. It was highly entertaining. It was complete bullshit. At least, I thought it was complete bullshit until I saw several people, all of whom were exhibiting genuinely odd marks on their necks, staring at me in a very strange way, not unlike a dog when it's just about to bite. I remember shaking my head in disbelief but still wondering: "Well, what if ...?" Of course, I knew such things just couldn't be. Could they?
But that was not all: Countless people were complaining of dizzy spells, of pronounced vertigo, and feelings of nausea that seemed to plague them wherever, and whenever, they went. The rumor mill continued to churn, with the collective opinion of those affected being that they had been "microwaved" by the dreaded — and ubiquitous — "them." Ah, yes: "them." The veritable hallmark of the paranoid and the delusional. But most of those complaining about such maladies seemed quite rational. Again: It couldn't be, could it?
I never really knew what to think about it all. To be stuck in a Nevada hotel with alien-replacements and microwaved paranoiacs, amid a never-ending background of bleeps and squeals that emanated from a plethora of slot-machines 24 hours a day, was highly appropriate for an English author of all-things-paranormal, and whose whole life seemed to attract wackiness in a way that a pile of shit attracts flies. And believe me, among those who heartily disagree with my ufological beliefs, such a comparison has been made on more than one occasion. But back to the most important thing: Dana.
Some might say that this was merely a heady, holiday romance that thousands of people all around the world experience when they are away from home, and alcohol, partying, and physical attraction are all key factors. But this time, there was definitely that extra something there, too. We just seemed to gel. The romantic dinners, and the longs talks about anything and everything, continued into the early hours of the mornings, and our days were filled with laughter. But as is often the case in such situations, the time flew by, and we knew that the week was going to be over in the blink of an eye. In fact, it was. After the gala dinner on the Saturday night when time was definitely no longer on our side, we were both thinking: What happens now? It was a question that echoed around my brain for the entire night. Primarily because on the following day, I was due to fly back to England, and Dana and Alex were Texas-bound.
On the Sunday morning, we both did our packing in our respective rooms and met in the lobby. When I saw Dana, it was quite clear that she had been crying. We sat closely on the couch in the lobby and I said that I would e-mail her as soon as I got home, and that we would exchange phone numbers. "You promise?" she replied, with a look on her face that was a mixture of both delight and concern. I nodded with a smile and squeezed her hand. Dana would later admit, however, that even though she had a great time, and she hoped that this would not turn out to be just a week-long adventure, she secretly had a few doubts about whether I would really keep in touch, or if I would simply go back to England, never to be heard from again, and regale my mates with tales of the hot Texan chick I nailed.
Well, I did tell my friends back home that we had a fine time, but I did not want the week to be the end of things. And so, after the flight across the ocean, I powered up the computer and, distinctly bleary of eye, sent the first e-mail of what would ultimately turn out to be a lengthy exchange. It took Dana a few days to reply, however, as, on the journey back to Littlefield, Alex and her ended up getting caught in a severe snowstorm and had to stay in Sedona, Arizona for a while until the roads cleared. Day after day, and for hours at a time, we would be typing to each other, not to mention rapidly inflating the profits of the phone companies with lengthy, transatlantic calls.
A couple of weeks later, I was back in the States for a preplanned trip to the National Archives in Maryland (in search of government documents on strange phenomena that ultimately appeared in my 2003 book, Strange Secrets), and that afforded us more time to get to know each other. And it was then that I invited Dana to come and visit me in England for the whole month of May, close space which she eagerly agreed.
Driving Dana up and down the country and introducing her to my family and to close friends I have known since my school days, and, with whom I still hang out at every given opportunity, was a joy, and she got to experience for the first time an old English castle, the rolling, green hills of the north of England, 500-year-old haunted pubs, and a weekend in London that included Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. She also met many of my good pals within the Fortean community, including Mark Birdsall, the editor of Eye Spy magazine, and my three closest friends within that same community: Jon Downes and Richard Freeman of the monster-hunting Center for Fortean Zoology, and crop-circle maker, Matthew Williams. Jon, Rich, Matt, and I were all booked to speak at the annual LAPIS UFO conference that month, and it was an ideal time for Dana to meet everyone in our usual, rowdy environments of off-the-wall lectures, free-flowing beer, and late nights of revelry. She loved it.
After a month of fun in Britain, it was time for Dana to head back to the States, and I began a six-week adventure traveling my homeland with Jon and Rich in search of all manner of unknown beast, an adventure that was chronicled within the pages of my 2004 book, Three Men Seeking Monsters. It was that six-week excursion that convinced me more than ever that the various mystery animals of this world such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Mothman (and its British equivalent the Owlman), had supernatural origins rather than physical ones. Dana and I kept in touch, and within a week of completing our adventure, I was jetting back to the States again for a lengthy period — one that just about hit the limit on the amount of time I could spend in the States without securing a visa.
In the weeks that passed between Dana's return to Texas and my excursions with Jon and Rich that saw us rampaging wildly around England and Scotland in search of animals from the outer edge, Dana had moved from her mother's place in Littlefield to Nederland, a pleasant southeast Texas town that was adjacent to Dana's hometown of Port Arthur, and which was situated on Texas's Gulf Coast. As a result, and as the hot summer of 2001 began in earnest, I flew from London to Houston International Airport, where Dana was waiting for me, and we drove the 90-minute moonlit journey to the house that she was renting from her dad, Danny.
As I had learned from Dana, Danny was a powerful J.R. Ewing-type character in southeast Texas, who had carved out a highly successful career in the roofing industry, and who, along with his pregnant wife Melissa, and their son Danny, Jr., lived in a huge property in an area of Port Arthur called Pleasure Island. Dana's grandmother, Sue, lived in a spacious apartment that was affixed to Danny's house, and we would have a lot of good times cooking and eating out by the family's swimming pool as I got to know them all.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Memoirs of a Monster Hunter"
by .
Copyright © 2007 Nick Redfern.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
Chapter 1: The Story Begins,
Chapter 2: Two Winged Things and a Wedding,
Chapter 3: Tales From Taos,
Chapter 4: Fangs, Fur, and Files,
Chapter 5: Monsters of the Big Thicket,
Chapter 6: A Menagerie of Monsters,
Chapter 7: Spectral Animals,
Chapter 8: Creatures of the Black Lagoon,
Chapter 9: In Search of Vampires,
Chapter 10: On the Track of Bigfoot,
Chapter 11: Ghost Lights and Spooky Nights,
Chapter 12: Public Enemy Number One,
Chapter 13: The Goat-Man Cometh,
Chapter 14: Around the World in 30 Days,
Chapter 15: Back to the Island of Blood,
Chapter 16: The Never-Ending Journey,
Resources,
Index,
About the Author,
Other Books by Nick Redfern,