Monster Files Book Review
Author Nick Redfern uncovers monsters and government secrets
For Your Eyes Only – Fantastic Beasts Dossier
Why would any government care about the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster or any far-fetched campfire stories? And yet they do, and with alarming consistency. Blowing the lid off accepted lore about strange creatures, prolific author Nick Redfern doesn’t settle for outdated explanations, instead in Monster files, he presents a compelling case for possible covert government involvement at every turn. Monster Files is exactly what the name suggests; probing government secrets, Freedom of Information Act documents, first-hand accounts, fairy-tale investigations and painstaking research. The result is a fascinating mix of paranormal and conspiracy.
Following a general chronology of monstrous events, the book begins with Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Step story and ends with modern day beasts.
Not every creature is necessarily an object of state interest; some monsters are introduced to serve as an introduction to the next story for official involvement. Yet it is not so easy to group each case into narrow classifications. Some monsters are “used” by governments as cunning misdirection, “wild goose chases” to hide top secret projects and advanced weapons. In other cases, these same agencies take a curious interest in all things paranormal. Sometimes they seem fascinated or even frightened, as in the case of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Oceanic Administration (NOA), which loudly protest thatMermaids don’t exist!
In other cases, the government has technological interests, as with the disappearing werewolf beasts and the Big Step, where multi-dimensional super technologies can be used for our own government criminal purposes.
In Monster Files, Nick Redfern shows himself to be an author and researcher who is willing to offer original conclusions and concepts to what might otherwise be common knowledge. His explanation of the origin of the somewhat famous or infamous sighting of the Flatwoods Monster in 1952 in the small town of Flatwoods, West Virginia is original and more than a little thought-provoking.
Oddity files are frequent and varied in form.
Government research into the psychic abilities of cats and dogs to detect hidden mines? True! This research also showed that cats and dogs transmit ESP information to each other.
FDR greenlights project to use bats as live bombs? yes, it’s here too!
An army of monsters and ape-human hybrids
A monster book wouldn’t be complete without Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific creations, real or rumored. Redfern explores the story of Russian physiologist Ilya Ivanov, who was allegedly recruited by none other than Joseph Stalin to create an army of a race of genetically matched half-human/half-ape humans in the late 1920s . The book is good at digging for the truth behind such crazy claims, and its author is not one to simply take such stories at face value. There is something here for skeptics and believers alike. Redfern covers all the bases.
And about the reality of the Russian ape-men?
“What we have here is a saga with some truth to it that describes very real attempts to create human-ape hybrids that
were undertaken by the scientific elite of the Soviet Union that
were funded by the Soviet Academy of Sciences and that
I did have the support of the Bolshevik government’.
(Reprinted, by permission of the publisher, from MONSTER FILES © 2013 Nick Redfern. Published by New Page Books, a division of Career Press, Pompton Plains, NJ. 800-227-3371. All rights reserved.)
Stalin’s involvement, however, as the author points out, remains to be seen.
There are other ape-men here, those of the long-lost cousin variety, and a few stories about possible Neanderthals show up for a visit.
The best is the last one in Chapter 3, (again from the USSR), telling the story of Lieutenant Colonel Karapetyan in the Medical Service of the Soviet Army in World War II. A strange-looking man was captured; whom the Soviet Union initially believed to be a spy. Covered in a long brown coat of shaggy hair, six feet tall and powerful arms, the beast had to be kept in a cold room because it could not tolerate heat.
The possibility of what any of these ape-men might have been makes any future visit to the ape exhibit at my local zoo unsettling.
Indian Jones: Monster Hunter
Adventurer Tom Slick, the possible real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones, is profiled in his eventual role as a CIA spy. Slick studied at Harvard and MIT, served in the Navy during the Pacific engagement in World War II, and was also instrumental in three groups that later became the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and the Southwest Research Institute. For all intents and purposes, Slick was a man who had solid connections with important people. He was also a world-traveling adventurer who had a very real passion for mysterious beasts such as the famous Yeti, aka the Abominable Snowman.
The real reason, some theorized, for Tom Slick’s 1956 trek to Tibet was not just to search for the Yeti, but to use the expedition as a cover for a secret CIA mission to spy on the invading Communist Chinese government, which was trying to conquered Tibet. The evidence presented in the Monster Files certainly lends credence to Slicks’ secret role. Redfern presents a 1959 US State Department document titled: Rules covering mountain climbing expeditions in Nepal – related to Yeti.
And it doesn’t end there. This chapter continues to tie up the loose threads of JFK’s assassination, The Big Step, and the fledgling career of none other than George HW Bush (aka Bush 41) and ties them neatly into one tight package!
The real scare comes at the end of this chapter with the mysterious death of Tom Slick on October 6, 1962. Returning from a hunt while flying over Montana, Slicks plane appears to have disintegrated mid-flight. As you can imagine, there are ominous notes of conspiracy. Did the CIA monster hunter know one too many secrets, secrets that doomed him to an early grave?
Locking the mysteries of the lake?
Our friend Nessie, the great Loch Ness monster is visited and revisited many times and for various reasons throughout the book. The good thing is that this never gets old. You still have so many questions. Of course, Nessie could be a ruse by the British government to hide sophisticated weapons, the Monster Files claims, but then that doesn’t explain the sightings, which predate the invention of submarines, as the author notes.
And then there is British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s interest in championing Nessie for Scottish tourism!
The burning point for me in The Monster Files was how could there be so many sightings of a large creature that could not survive on such a meager amount of food provided by the Loch? The possibility that Nessie is actually the ghost of an extinct dinosaur is a mind-blowing concept.
Bigfoot: What the US Government Doesn’t Want You to Know
Mount St. Helens erupted with terrifying force in May 1980. After all the volcanic ash had settled, there were rumors and scattered reports that several Sasquatch-like beasts had been kidnapped by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Chapter 18 holds more surprises, but the reason for the government’s intervention can only be speculated. The book hints at the idea that these beasts, Bigfoot, have some special ability that the military is studying.
There is also a chapter on UFOs and the Big Step here. The possibility that these beings can jump to other dimensions and that they have psychic abilities are the possible reasons given for government/military involvement.
Monster Mash-Up
There are many stories that haunt and fascinate, and the short story about the US government trying to get an ordinary house cat to work as a spy was shocking to me. This is just one of the many things that make this book a must-read. The Case of the Dismembered Bigfoot, Princess Di, and the Big Black Cat Killer, the Werewolf of World War II; it’s all a page-turner! There are so many good tales here that each one does a disservice to the other strange tales. Nick Redfern’s Monster Files brings you mysteries, monsters, conspiracies and excitement. This is a book to read and read again.
Monster Files by Nick Redfern
New page Books 15.99
Paperback 288 pages
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