Book picks similar to
Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How To Solve Unexplained Mysteries by Benjamin Radford
science
paranormal
non-fiction
nonfiction
True Police Stories of the Strange & Unexplained
Ingrid P. Dean - 2011
I had no way of knowing that this seemingly routine decision would lead to a strange twist of fate years later...These true, first-hand accounts from law enforcement officials across the nation reveal how intuition, apparitions, UFOs, prophetic dreams, and other forces beyond our understanding have impacted them in the course of duty.The weird and unexplained experiences in this book take place in the midst of the death-defying gun battles, thrilling rescues, and heart-searing tragedies that police officers face every day--and reveal the fascinating inner lives of the heroic men and women behind the badge.
Cops' True Stories of the Paranormal: Ghosts, UFOs, and Other Shivers
Loren W. Christensen - 2016
Christensen asked men and women in uniform—police officers, sheriff deputies, SWAT, command, correction officers, and MPs—to convey their experiences with the paranormal. These are veteran officers that have been there and done that, but on one occasion they were confronted with the unexplained ... Here are some of the stories told within: Close Encounters of the Second Kind Vanished Trapped Eyes Dead Man Walking Dead Man's Cane A Touch of Thanks The Snitch The Warning The Light The Couple Wrong Number Ghost Prisoner Tower 7 Hospital Morgue Coffee and Cups The Stabber The Faceless Mannequin White Eagle The Man in the Window Strange Place Forest Lawn Cemetery Scratches A Sign in Twisted Metal He Pulled The Trigger Four Times
Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic-12 & the United States Government's UFO Cover-up
Stanton T. Friedman - 1996
Friedman's twenty-one year search for the truth about the mysterious Operation Majestic 12, President Truman's top-secret UFO investigation team. In this updated edition of his landmark book, he tells the incredible tale of the July, 1947 recovery of a crashed flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico, and the establishment by President Truman of a truly all-star cast to deal with the saucer and its non-human inhabitants. The first four Directors of Central Intelligence, the first Secretary of Defense, and several outstanding scientists and military leaders were part of the team. Through painstaking research and startling evidence—including documents that have never before been published—Friedman effectively exposes the U.S. government's biggest-kept secret: a fifty-eight year UFO cover-up.
Greatest Mysteries of the Unexplained: A Compelling Collection of the World's Most Perplexing Phenomena
Lucy Doncaster - 2005
Tales are recounted in vividdetail and incorporate all the latest scientific research and conclusions. Where possible, specially chosen images accompany the stories to help explain a particular riddle or provide a deeper insight into the nature of the unknown generally. Including investigations into prophecy and the paranormal and religious and medical marvels, this book attempts to discover the truth behind the greatest enigmas of the universe. It is sure to both bewilder and intrigue.
The World's Greatest Mysteries
Gerry Brown - 1989
Part of a series of books which examines real-life stories that have made newspaper headlines around the world, this features mysterious stories.
The Secret Origins Of The Bible
Tim Callahan - 2002
Many intelligent and otherwise well informed readers will find much of the material in this book new and quite startling, although Bible scholars, and anyone who has even an amateur background in comparative mythology, will be familiar with it. Bible scholar and religion editor Tim Callahan fills the gap left by many Bible interpreters who examine only those Bible verses which can be made to support their personal or political views. But the world needs a broader understanding of its sacred texts, particularly when selective interpretation of the Bible is used to fuel extremism, and when interpreting Bible verses out of the context in which they were written intrudes on rational solutions for modern problems.Callahan uses comparative mythology to demonstrate how Bible stories that do not make much sense on the surface can be understood on deeper levels when their mythic content is revealed. He uses literary analysis, history, and archeological comparisons to expand our understanding of the purpose these stories served for those who originally wrote them.
The Dark Sacrament: True Stories of Modern-Day Demon Possession and Exorcism
David Kiely - 2007
Kiely and Christina McKenna faithfully recount ten contemporary cases of demon possession, haunted houses, and exorcism, and profile the work of two living, active exorcists: Canon William Lendrum, a Protestant, and Father Ignatius McCarthy, a Roman Catholic. Kiely and McKenna conducted countless interviews with victims, families, witnesses, and clergy who assisted in performing multiple rites of exorcism. Many of the accounts are very recent and, in some cases, ongoing. Kiely and McKenna serve as trustworthy guides on this suspense-filled journey into the bizarre, offering concrete advice on how to avoid falling prey to the dark side. Exorcists Canon Lendrum and Father Ignatius reveal their fears, failings, and victories as they reflect on their forty years of service battling the Devil and his minions.The Dark Sacrament includes the following chilling stories:A woman is tormented by her evil dead grandmother, causing her to coil like a snake, snarl, and be invaded by several demons.A housewife is haunted by the answers from her children playing on a Ouija board and by a historical character who sexually terrorizes her so much that she is too ashamed to admit it even to her husband.A young girl experiences astral travel when the Angel of Death enters her body and takes her along on a frightening journey.A boy's temperament turns dark as he is tortured by demons, causing him to become harmful to others—an unresolved 2007 case that is ongoing.Thoroughly researched and impressively wide-ranging, The Dark Sacrament contains an appendix with detailed historical analysis, translated prayers of exorcism, and fascinating notes on important terms and practices.
Supposedly Haunted: True Life Experiences of a Paranormal Investigator
E.E. Bensen - 2016
He discusses what brought him into the paranormal research field, describes real life supernatural events witnessed firsthand during his numerous investigations, and also provides an opinion of what all of it might be. Experiencing paranormal phenomena has a way of changing one's perspective. Locations include Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Preston Castle, The Washoe Club, The Stanley Hotel, Old Tooele Hospital (Asylum 49), Farrar Elementary School, and more!
Where the Footprints End: High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomenon, Volume I: Folklore
Joshua Cutchin - 2020
Bigfoot may be howling from a lonely mountaintop, but the bigfoot phenomenon is whispering secrets... if we will only listen.Eyewitnesses, investigators, and cryptozoologists worldwide contend ample evidence exists supporting the survival of large, hairy, apelike creatures alongside mankind today, lurking in the wilderness. By all appearances, these beings seem wholly natural, interacting with their surroundings and leaving behind hair, blood, droppings, and, of course, footprints.Yet despite their apparently physical nature, bigfoot and its hairy hominid kin consistently appear mired in High Strangeness—the peculiar, ineffable, and nonsensical absurdities so often encountered in paranormal phenomena.Some sightings seem more consistent with mythology than biology. Bigfoot often present supernatural attributes, like luminescent eyes or the ability to pass, ghostlike, through structures. Anomalous lights are regulalry seen in areas of frequent sasquatch activity. Footprints persistently, if rarely, display odd numbered toes, and—most bafflingly—bigfoot trackways suddenly terminate in the middle of open, untouched terrain.In Volume 1 of Where the Footprints End: High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomenon, authors Joshua Cutchin and Timothy Renner carefully examine not only the intersection of hairy apemen with global folklore—of poltergeists, faeries, extraterrestrials, magic, witches, ghosts, and archetypal women-in-white—but also question the fundamental assumptions underlying contemporary cryptozoological beliefs surrounding bigfoot.
Monster Hunters: On the Trail with Ghost Hunters, Bigfooters, Ufologists, and Other Paranormal Investigators
Tea Krulos - 2015
Without taking sides in the debate, Krulos joins these believers in the field, exploring haunted houses, trekking through creepy forests, and scanning skies and lakes as they collect data on the unknown poltergeists, chupacabras, Skunk Apes (Bigfoot’s stinky cousins), and West Virginia’s Mothman. Along the way, he meets a diverse cast of characters—true believers, skeptics, and hoaxers—from the credible to the quirky, and has a couple of hair-raising encounters that make him second-guess his own beliefs.
Death by Theory: A Tale of Mystery and Archaeological Theory
Adrian Praetzellis - 2000
A large stone Venus. Nothing unusual about it_except that it was found on an island in the Pacific Northwest. Archaeologist Hannah Green and her shovelbum nephew find themselves in a tangled web of competing interests avaricious land owners, hungry media, and a cult of goddess worshippers while investigating one of the finds of the century. In untangling the mystery of the Washington Venus, Hannah and Sean have to confront questions of archaeological evidence, of ethics, of conflicting interpretation of data, and of the very nature of archaeological truths. Helping them are a cadre of disdainful graduate students who propose various theories processualist, marxist, feminist, postmodernist to explain the bizarre events. Teach your students archaeological theory in a fashion they'll enjoy, while they solve the mystery in Adrian Praetzellis's delightful textbook-as-novel.
Ghosts Caught on Film: Photographs of the Paranormal
Melvyn Willin - 2007
It covers every aspect of the paranormal, from early photographs of psychics, mediums and ghostly happenings, to celebrated recent photos and the most interesting examples of the unexplained, as collected in the archive of the Society for Psychical Research. Each picture is accompanied by a description of its circumstances and the steps taken by researchers to establish that there is no 'normal' explanation for the phenomena. The incredible photographs will stimulate the interest of everyone who sees them. Whether you are a sceptic or a believer, you can't help but be drawn into the mystery.
Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
Michael Shermer - 1997
A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices, with more than 80,000 copies in print, Why People Believe Weird Things debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing. In an entirely new chapter, "Why Smart People Believe in Weird Things," Michael Shermer takes on science luminaries like physicist Frank Tippler and others, who hide their spiritual beliefs behind the trappings of science.Shermer, science historian and true crusader, also reveals the more dangerous side of such illogical thinking, including Holocaust denial, the recovered-memory movement, the satanic ritual abuse scare, and other modern crazes. Why People Believe Strange Things is an eye-opening resource for the most gullible among us and those who want to protect them.
The Rochdale Poltergeist: A True Story
Jenny Ashford - 2015
Until I did. And then I was thinking, ‘Oh God, do I really want to continue with this?’” - Steve Mera BSc., Director of the Scientific Establishment of Parapsychology Steve Mera had been investigating paranormal phenomena for many years, and had never seen anything that shook him to his very foundations. All that changed in 1996, when he was called in with his team to look into the bizarre occurrences taking place at a small bungalow in Rochdale, Manchester, England. Flying objects, disembodied voices, phantom smells and sounds, and strangest of all, copious falls of water seemingly coming from nowhere plagued the Gardner family for nearly a year. What Steve experienced during the investigation was enough to make him question his entire career path, and remains one of only a handful of cases that he is completely unable to rationally explain. This account, written by horror author Jenny Ashford from interviews conducted with Steve about the case, is a bone-chilling foray into the paranormal that will make even the most ardent skeptic sleep with the lights on.
Experiencing the Lifespan
Janet Belsky - 2006
In 2007, Janet Belsky's "Experiencing the Lifespan" was published to widespread instructor and student acclaim, ultimately winning the 2008 Textbook Excellence Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association. Now that breakthrough text returns in a rigorously updated edition that explores the lifespan by combining the latest research with a practicing psychologist's understanding of people, and a teacher's understanding of students and classroom dynamics. And again, all of this in the right number of pages to fit comfortably in a single term course.