The Bones Of St. Peter: A Fascinating Account Of The Search For The Apostle's Body


John Evangelist Walsh - 1982
    

The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee


Mike Clelland - 2015
    After reading it, your view of reality will never be the same.The owl has held a place of reverence and mystique throughout history. And as strange as this might seem, owls are also showing up in conjunction with the UFO experience.Mike Clelland has collected a wealth of first-hand accounts in which owls manifest in the highly charged moments that surround alien contact. There is a strangeness to these accounts that defy simple explanations. This book explores implications that go far beyond what more conservative researchers would dare consider.But the owl connection encompasses more than the UFO experience. It also includes profound synchronicities, ancient archetypes, dreams, shamanistic experiences, personal transformation, and death. From the mythic legends of our ancient past to the first-hand accounts of the UFO abductee, owls are playing some vital role.This is also a deeply personal story. It is an odyssey of self-discovery as the author grapples with his own owl and UFO encounters. What plays out is a story of transformation with the owl at the heart of this journey..NOTE: This book has been updated. Several new stories have been added, some redundancies have been removed, and the text has been streamlined with typos cleaned up!

Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps


Chet Van Duzer - 2013
    The subject is important not only in the history of cartography, art, and zoological illustration, but also in the history of the geography of the marvelous and Western conceptions of the ocean. Moreover, the sea monsters depicted on maps can supply important insights into the sources, influences, and methods of the cartographers who drew or painted them. In this wonderfully illustrated book the book author analyses the more important examples of sea monsters on maps produced in Europe, beginning with the earliest mappaemundi on which they appear in the tenth century and continuing to the end of the sixteenth century. The book will be the standard work on the subject for years to come.

Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life


Alastair Brotchie - 2011
    A century later, Jarry is firmly established as one of the leading figures of the artistic avant-garde. Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Philip K. Dick, Paul McCartney, DJ Spooky, Peter Greenaway, and J. G. Ballard are among his many admirers. A community of scholars and artists maintain a posthumous dialogue with Jarry's ideas through the Collège de 'Pataphysique in Paris (named after the "science of imaginary solutions" he conceived), while a steady stream of books on twentieth-century drama pay tribute to his absurd and grotesque play, Ubu Roi. Even so, most people today tend to think of Jarry only as the author of that play, and of his life as a string of outlandish "ubuesque" anecdotes, often recounted with wild inaccuracy. In this first full-length critical biography of Jarry in English, Alastair Brotchie reconstructs the life of a man intent on inventing (and destroying) himself, not to mention his world, and the "philosophy" that defined their relation. In short, Brotchie gives us the narrative version of what Jarry himself produced: a pataphysical life. Drawing on a wealth of new material, Brotchie alternates chapters of biographical narrative with chapters that connect themes, obsessions, and undercurrents that relate to the life.The anecdotes remain, and are even augmented: Jarry's assumption of the "ubuesque," his inversions of everyday behavior (such as eating backwards, from cheese to soup), his exploits with gun and bicycle, and his herculean feats of drinking. But Brotchie distinguishes between Jarry's purposely playing the fool and deeper nonconformities that appear essential to his writing and his thought, both of which remain a vital subterranean influence to this day.

Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51


Phil Patton - 1998
    It is the airbase where test flights of our top-secret experimental military aircraft are conducted and --not coincidentally--where the conspiracy theorists insist the Pentagon is hiding UFOs and aliens. This is Dreamland--or Area 51. For Phil Patton, the idea of writing a travel account of a place he couldn't actually visit was irresistible. What he found was a world where Chick Yeager and the secret planes of the Cold War converged with the Nevada Test Site and alien landings at Roswell. A think tank for aviation engineering, Dreamland can be seen from a summit outside the base's perimeter, a hundred miles north of Las Vegas. On Freedom Ridge, groups of airplane buffs gather with their camouflage outfits and binoculars. These are the Stealth chasers, the Skunkers, guys with code names like Agent X and Zero, hoping for a glimpse of the rumored raylike shapes of planes like Black Manta and " the mother ship." The most mysterious craft is Aurora, the successor to the legendary U-2, said to run on methane and fly as fast as Mach 6. Scanning the same horizon, the UFO buffs are looking for the hovering lights and doughnut-shaped contrails of alien aircraft. Are they looking at something sinister and mysterious? Imagined? Or more terrestrial than they think? Dreamland shows how much we need mystery in the information age, and how the cultures of nuclear power and airpower merge with the folklores of extraterrestrials and earthly conspiracies.Patton found people who found themselves in the mysteries of the place. John Lear, the son of aviation pioneer Bill Lear--who gave his name to the jet--served as a pilot for the CIA's Air America, but back home, he became fascinated by UFOs and eventually believed in it all: the underground bases, the alien-human hybrids, the secret treaties. But was he a true believer, or part of a disinformation campaign? Bob Lazar seems to know when the saucers will come, and has made three clear sightings at night along Dreamland's perimeter, but is his story real, or a vision of what's possible? Dreamland is an exploration of America's most secret place: the base for our experimental airplanes, the fount of UFO rumors, an offshoot of the Nevada Test Site. How this " blackspot" came to exist--its history, its creators, its spies and counterspies--is Phil Patton's tale. He tunnels into the subcultures of the conspiracy buffs, the true believers, and the aeronautic geniuses, creating a novelistic tour de force destined to make us all rethink our convictions about American know-how--and alien inventiveness.

Monsters of the Sea


Richard Ellis - 1994
    A fascinating exploration of sea monsters.

Disneyland of the Gods


John A. Keel - 1995
    In this book, Keel leads the way into this mysterious realm, postulating that what we know--or, rather, think we know--about UFOs & their ilk is in need of serious reconsideration. The possibilities Keel has uncovered through his years of research are controversial, to say the least; what he has to say will undoubtedly infuriate or alienate (excuse the pun) many readers. This is most unfortunate, since Keel is only trying his best to make sense of what seems at times a senseless matter indeed, perpetuated by some eternally manipulative & elusive intelligence. If there was ever a "must-read" for anyone interested in the paranormal, occult etc., this must surely be it.--Michael Lubert

Animals in Motion


Eadweard Muybridge - 1957
    Animals are shown walking, running, leaping, flying — in typical actions. The horse alone is shown in more than 40 different ways: galloping with nude rider, trotting, pacing with sulky, cantering, jumping hurdles, carrying, rolling on barrels, and 36 other actions. All photos taken against ruled backgrounds; most actions taken from 3 angles at once: 90 degrees, 60 degrees, rear. Foreshortened views are included. These are true action photos, stopped in series, taken at speeds up to 1/2000th of a second. Actions are illustrated in series, with as many as 50 shots per action. Muybridge worked with the University of Pennsylvania for three years, made more than 100,000 exposures, and spent more than $50,000. His work has never been superseded as a lifetime reference for animators, illustrators, artists, and art directors.

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination


Daniel J. Boorstin - 1992
    Boorstin explores the development of artistic innovation over 3,000 years. A hugely ambitious chronicle of the arts that Boorstin delivers with the scope that made his Discoverers a national bestseller.

Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men: The Surviving Elites of the Cosmic War and Their Hidden Agenda


Joseph P. Farrell - 2011
    Consider the possibility that the evolutionary scientific explanation for mankind has ignored critical facts that are buried deep within the fossils and mankind's DNA. Consider the possibility that the religious stories that have often been the core basis for mankind's understanding of where it belongs in the history of creation may actually reveal a planet occupied with tyrannical giants and an elite highly intelligent race bent on genetic mutation.As horrifying as such possibilities are, Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men sets forth a plausible theory revealing a hidden history of mankind and a possible reason that it has remained veiled for hundreds of thousands of years. With his well-documented style and breathtaking conclusions, Dr. Joseph P. Farrell pulls back the veil and takes the reader on an odyssey behind the mysterious history and myths of the human race.Joseph P. Farrell is a recognized scholar whose credentials include a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oxford. His literary contribution is a veritable resumé unto itself covering such fields as Nazi Germany, sacred literature, physics, finances, the Giza pyramids, and music theory. A renowned researcher with an eye to assimilate a tremendous amount of background material, Farrell is able to condense the best scholastic research in publication and draw insightful new conclusions on complex and controversial subjects.

Out of the Night: The Memoir of Richard Julius Herman Krebs alias Jan Valtin


Jan Valtin - 1940
    . . full of sensational revelations and interspersed with episodes of daring, of desperate conflict, of torture, and of ruthless conspiracy . . . It is, first of all, an autobiography the like of which has seldom been.”The son of a seafaring father, Richard Julius Herman Krebs, a.k.a. Jan Valtin, came of age as a bicycle messenger during a maritime rebellion. His life as an intimate insider account of the dramatic events of 1920’s and 1930s, where he rose both within the ranks of the Communist Party and on the Gestapo hit list. Known for his honesty and incredible memory, Krebs dedicated his life to the Communist Party, rising to a position as head of maritime, organizing worldwide for the Comintern, only to flee the Party and Europe to evade his own comrade’s attempts to kill him. As a professional revolutionary, agitator, spy and would-be assassin, Krebs traveled the globe from Germany to China, India to Sierra Leon, Moscow to the United States where a botched assassination attempt landed him a stint in San Quentin.From his spellbinding account of artful deception to gain release from a Nazi prison and his work as a double-agent within the Gestapo, to his vivid depiction of a Communist Party fraught with intrigue and subterfuge, Krebs gives an unflinching portrayal of the internal machinations of both parties.Writing at age 36 under the name Jan Valtin, Krebs lays bare a young life filled with idealism and devotion—disillusionment and loss—in a world full of revolutionary promise gone immeasurably wrong.”An exciting, real book without a trace of unnecessary melodrama.”—H.G.Wells

Weird Virginia: Your Travel Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets


Jeff Bahr - 2007
    And it's precisely this offbeat sense of curiosity that led the duo to create Weird N.J. and the successful series that followed. The NOT shocking result? Every Weird book has become a best seller in its region! This best-selling series has sold more than one million copies...and counting! Thirty volumes of the Weird series have been published to great success since Weird New Jersey's 2003 debut.

Face to Face with Vincent Van Gogh


Aukje Vergeest - 2015
    It also relates the extraordinary history of the museum's collection, a collection that has enabled the Van Gogh Museum to evolve into a world-renowned centre of knowledge about Van Gogh's work and the art of his time.

Secret Life: Firsthand, Documented Accounts of Ufo Abductions


David M. Jacobs - 1992
    Jacobs of Temple University takes us into the private world of those abducted by aliens, letting them describe in their own words what it is like to be abducted. Based on interviews with sixty individuals and more than 300 independently corroborated accounts, Secret Life presents the most complete and accurate picture of alien abductions ever compiled. Dr. Jacobs takes the reader on a minute-by-minute journey through a typical abduction experience and describes in detail the bizarre physical, mental and reproductive procedures that abductees claim have been administered by small alien beings. Jacobs draws from these interviews a profoundly unsettling reason behind the abductions: aliens are conducting a complex reproductive experiment involving the conception, gestation. or incubation of human and alien hybrid beings.

Versailles: A History


Robert B. Abrams - 2017
    Here is the dramatic - and tragic - story of Versailles and the men and women who made it their home.