An employee of the St. James Hotel in New Mexico watches in shock as a fair-haired toddler with a terribly disfigured face disappears into the floor. This is just one of the paranormal mysteries Leslie Rule shares with us--a result of extensive interviews and research uncovering the reasons behind ghost sightings across the country.Coast to Coast Ghosts features dozens of spine-tingling, real-life ghost stories and approximately fifty black-and-white photographs taken by Rule, including some believed to have captured actual apparitions.Only the reader can decide. . . .

    Gordon Melton has the credentials: he's a religious historian, author of 25 books about religion and vampires, president of the American chapter of the Transylvania Society of Dracula (founded in Bucharest, Romania), and chairman of the committee that put on Dracula '97: A Centennial Celebration in Los Angeles. The Vampire Book is meticulously researched and well organized. Included are an article on the cultural history of the vampire; a historical timeline; addresses of vampire societies all over the world; a 55-page filmography; vampires in plays, opera, and ballet; a 13-page list of vampire novels; and an extensive index. The A to Z entries, each with a short bibliography, include vampire lore in more than 30 different geographic regions and a comprehensive "who's who," and cover topics ranging from fingernails to sexuality, the Camarilla to Szekelys.

    Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while exposing the flaws of popular scientific explanations. Virtually all of his material was compiled and documented from reports published in reputable journals, newspapers and periodicals because he was an avid collector. Charles Fort was somewhat of a recluse who spent most of his spare time researching these strange events and collected these reports from publications sent to him from around the globe. This was the first of a series of books he created on unusual and unexplained events and to this day it remains the most popular. If you agree that truth is often stranger than fiction, then this book is for you.

    From our colonial past to the present, the monster in all its various forms has been a staple of American culture. A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past, Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity.Monsters are not just fears of the individual psyche, historian Scott Poole explains, but are concoctions of the public imagination, reactions to cultural influences, social change, and historical events. Conflicting anxieties about race, class, gender, sexuality, religious beliefs, science, and politics manifest as haunting beings among the populace. From Victorian-era mad scientists to modern-day serial killers, new monsters appear as American society evolves, paralleling fluctuating challenges to the cultural status quo. Consulting newspaper accounts, archival materials, personal papers, comic books, films, and oral histories, Poole adroitly illustrates how the creation of the monstrous "other" not only reflects society's fears but shapes actual historical behavior and becomes a cultural reminder of inhuman acts.

    Be Very Afraid.From ghosts, vampires, and zombies to serial killers, cannibalistic hillbillies, and haunted Japanese videocassettes, How to Survive a Horror Movie shows how to defeat every obstacle found in scary films. Readers will discover:- How to Perform an Exorcism - What to Do If You Did Something Last Summer - How to Persuade the Skeptical Local Sheriff - How to Vanquish a Murderous Doll - How to Survive an Alien Invasion - How to Tell If You've Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movieand much, much more. Complete with useful instructions, insane illustrations, and a list of 100 important films to study, How to Survive a Horror Movie is essential reading for prom queens, jocks, teenage babysitters, and anyone employed by a summer camp.

    In nineteenth-century New England another sort of vampire was relentlessly ravishing the populace, or so it was believed by many rural communities suffering the plague of tuberculosis. Indeed, as this fascinating book shows, the vampire of folk superstition figures significantly in the attempt of early Americans to reasonably explain and vanquish the dreaded affliction then known as consumption. In gripping narrative detail, folklorist Michael E. Bell reconstructs a distant world, where on March 17, 1892, three corpses were exhumed from a Rhode Island cemetery. One of them, Mercy Brown, who had succumbed to consumption, appeared to have turned over in her grave. Mercy's family cut out her heart, which still held clots of blood, burned it on a nearby rock, and fed the ashes to her ailing brother. To Mercy's community she had become a vampire living a spectral existence and consuming the vitality of her siblings. From documents written as early as 1790 to a recent conversation with a descendant of Mercy Brown, Bell investigates twenty cases in which the vampiric dead were exhumed to save the ailing living. He also explores a widespread folk tradition that has survived generations, as ordinary people today strive to battle extraordinary diseases like Ebola or AIDS with a deeply rooted belief in their power to heal themselves. "Bell's absorbing account is ... a major contribution to the study of New England folk beliefs."—Boston Globe "Filled with ghostly tales, glowing corpses, rearranged bones, visits to hidden graveyards.... This is a marvelous book."—Providence Journal

    Ghosts and haunting

    Only a select few have ever had access to the truth about what became known as Area 51.But what happened to the remnants of that crash is shrouded in even greater mystery. What began in the high desert of New Mexico ended at Wright-Patterson, an ultra top-secret Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. The physical evidence of extraterrestrial visitation was buried deep within this nuclear stronghold.How tragic that such seismic news should be kept from the people of the world...pieces of history, now quickly dwindling into oblivion as the last of the secret-keepers passes on.In spite of its rich history of military service to our nation, Wright-Patterson also stands as the secret tomb of one of the greatest occurrences in recorded history. But be prepared...the real Area 51--Wright-Patterson's vault--is about to be opened.

    From the earliest whispers of eternal evil in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, vampire tales flourished through the centuries and around the globe, fueled by superstition, sexual mystery, fear of disease and death, and the nagging anxiety that demons lurk everywhere.In Vampire Forensics, Mark Jenkins probes vampire legend to tease out the historical truths enshrined in the tales of terror: sherds of Persian pottery depicting blood-sucking demons; the amazing recent discovery by National Geographic archaeologist Matteo Borrini of a 16th-century Venetian grave of a plague victim and suspected vampire; and the Transylvanian castle of "Vlad the Impaler," whose bloodthirsty cruelty remains unsurpassed.Jenkins navigates centuries of lore and legend, adding new chapters to the chronicle and weaving an irresistibly seductive blend of superstition, psychology, and science sure to engross everyone from Anne Rice's countless readers to serious students of archaeology and mythology.

    The Demonologist reveals the grave religious process behind supernatural events and how it can happen to you. Over twenty years in print, here is the original uncut version of this classic text. Illustrated with photographs of phenomena in progress, every sentence in the book is true. Used as a text in seminaries and classrooms, this is one book you can't put down.

    According to local lore, the troubled spirit of society belle Ladell Allen, who had mysteriously committed suicide in the master bedroom in 1948, still roamed the grand historic mansion. Yet, Mark remained skeptical--until he and his family began encountering faceless phantoms, a doppelganger spirit, and other paranormal phenomena. Ensuing ghost investigations offered convincing evidence that six spirits, including Ladell, inhabited their home. But the most shocking event occurred the day Mark followed a strange urge to explore the attic and found, crammed under a floorboard, secret love letters that touchingly depict Ladell Allen's forbidden, heart-searing romance--and shed light on her tragic end.This haunting true ghost story includes several photographs of the Allen House.

    The Bell family are terrorized by an invisible, talking poltergeist that has taken up residence in their home. While the children are beaten and harassed in their beds, their father is stricken by seizures, and visiting skeptics are confounded by a hateful, disembodied voice that ridicules their attempts at investigation. Centered around the person of young Betsy Bell, the Bell Witch haunting has been called the 19th century's answer to "The Exorcist," and has been the inspiration for such popular films as "The Blair Witch Project" and "An American Haunting."Nicknamed the "Red Book," "An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch" was the first published book on the legend. It contains the full text of "Our Family Troubles," the purported diary of Richard Williams Bell, as well interviews with the descendents of some of the characters who figure in the story. Written in 1894, it stands alone the single most important source for historians of the Bell Witch haunting.

    They said nothing bad could ever happen here.But they were wrong.This collection of terrifying true stories exposes the dark side of life in the ’burbs—from corpses buried in backyards and ghosts lurking in fast food restaurants to UFOs, vanishing persons, bizarre apparitions, and worse.Consider:•  The Soccer Mom’s Secret. Meet Melinda Raisch of Columbus, Ohio. She’s the wife of a dentist. A mother of three. A PTA member. And she has enough murderous secrets to fill a minivan.•  Noise Pollution. More than 100 residents of Kokomo, Indiana, claim their small town is under attack by a low-pitched humming sound that erodes health and sanity. Too bad they’re the only ones who can hear it.•  Death Takes a Holiday Inn. There’s nothing more reassuring than a big chain hotel in a quaint small town—unless it’s the Holiday Inn of Grand Island, New York, where you’ll spend the night with the spirit of a mischievous little girl.So lock your doors, dim the lights, and prepare to stay up all night with this creepy collection of true tales. We promise you’ll never look at white picket fences the same way again!Sam Stall lives with his wife, Jami, in the quintessentially Middle American town of Indianapolis, Indiana. Their home sits on quiet, tree-lined Primsrose Avenue, part of a beautiful suburban area where nothing bad ever happens (except the tragic events described on pages 16, 178, and 216).

    Read about all the greatest heroes--and the most horrific monsters--in this classic collection of timeless adventures.Contains: Demigods: - Perseus- Daedalus- Theseus- AtalantaFables: - Midas- Pygmalion

    With Jason Specter—the nation's unofficial collector of all things paranormalÑas your guide meet the girl in Illinois who can start fires with her mind, the Skunk Ape of Florida that knocks victims flat with its stench, the mischievous Shadow People of Arkansas, the Jersey Devil, the extraterrestrials who take human organs as a souvenir of their trip to Washington, and the wailing ghost of a teenage girl trapped forever in an Oregon lighthouse. Some of these visitors from other worlds don't mean to hurt anyone . . . and some of them do.Warning: All of these stories are based on true events. Are you ready to face the terror in your state?