ON THE TRAIL OF UNIDENTIFIED FURRY OBJECTS by Jerome Clark

Jerome Clark investigates the thing that came to visit Roachdale, IN in the summer of '72. Unsettling details like glowing eyes, lights in the sky, a penchant for leftovers, and (almost) no footprints to speak of make this one for the weird "hairy biped" records. Whatever it was, it killed the Burdine family chickens but seemed to leave humans well enough alone ... for now.

Reactions from local authorities were ambivalent. Clark quotes two skeptics, a town marshal and a conservation officer, alongside a neighboring sheriff who put out a bizarre BOLO for a "ten foot tall monster covered in fur." Sheriff Gary Cooper (yup) goes on to say the mystery creature could be a bear, or a badger. Clark describes a horde of rubberneckers descending on the town, the small panic among locals that developed, and also places the case in context alongside other Midwestern monster flaps that year.

This article is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

Courtesy Fate magazine, Volume 26 - Number 8, August 1973.

THE TELEPATHIC DOLPHINS by Fred P. Graham

Fred P. Graham writes up some dolphin/ESP experimentation by Patricia Hayes and Ann Phillips of the Arthur Ford Academy of Parapsychology and Research. Flipper's Sea School has changed hands multiple times and is currently known as the Dolphin Research Center. Meanwhile, the Arthur Ford Academy lives on as Delphi University, a school for mediumship and spiritual studies.

Graham also quotes Dr. John C. Lilly for some background on potential dolphin intellect, and helpfully defines the intuitive PSI SCAN, codeveloped by Phillips and Jan Clema, and utilized by one Bill Clema on dolphin Terce.

This article is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

Courtesy Fate magazine, Volume 31 - Number 7, July 1978.

SECRETS OF THE PYRAMIDS REVEALED by Robert K. Moffett

By now, it may have become apparent that doctorates carry substantial weight among the nonconformist schools of pyramid study. In fact, academic titles abound to a point where it is hardly paranoid to conclude that they are used for the purpose of impressing the reader with the author’s scholarship. But do they not also imply a promise that the scholarship in the books will be sound?

Perhaps a more accurate title would have been Secrets of Pyramidology Revealed? Author Robert K. Moffett teases us with a pointless introduction in a style that seems to have been de rigueur for skeptical works in the '70s: dressing up your critical work like it's just another mystery mongering meatloaf volume. Moffett mentions Karel Drbal and his razor sharpening pyramids, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, and Uri Geller - but none of these are relevant for the rest of the book. Moffett's actual text is about how we got here, to the pyramid mania of the '70s, through a history of the theories of the original pyramidologists. It's a crash course on writers like John Taylor and Howard Vyse (and their precursor John Greaves), fine tuners like Piazzi Smyth, and then bandwagon jumpers on up to the 20th century and the modern day. 

Moffett gives context on why specific writers were interested in certain aspects of the pyramids, and how oftentimes their facts and figures had less to do with the actual stones in the sand than with contemporary religious and political struggles:

At this point, Taylor was sure he had had a revelation, for this was a matter of keen topical interest.

The metric system, developed in France, had by this time spread throughout the Continent, and there was agitation both from the scientific community and export-conscious manufacturers to adopt it in Great Britain. But there was a strong British resistance movement largely based on religious grounds. The French Revolution, with its strong anticlerical bias, had aroused grave misgivings in Britain, and the metric system was closely identified with it. As originally proposed, the metric conversion had involved switching to a ten-day week. Genesis made it perfectly clear that the Lord endorsed the seven-day week. That, after a period of trial, the French themselves had abandoned the decimal week was immaterial. If, in this, the original thinking had been contrary to the Will of God, the entire system was suspect.

Now Taylor could perceive the true function of the Great Pyramid: It was not by chance that the pyramid used the British system of weights and measures. Rather, it was a compendium incorporating the original, Divinely inspired system which had survived in Britain. The Great Pyramid was a message passed down to modern times to strengthen the wills of the anti-metric faction.

The search for cosmic truths collapses inward! Moffett writes with a dry humor, respectfully conveying various crank ideas but occasionally popping an especially ridiculous balloon such as in the case of psychic gadfly Edgar Cayce:

In terms of both current popularity and sheer volume, the most important of the clairvoyants to have contributed to the story of Atlantis was Edgar Cayce who, despite the widespread belief in his ability to communicate across the barrier between this and the afterworld, hasn’t been heard from since his death in 1945.

Once we've completed our journey with Moffett from Ancient Egypt to 19th century Europe to 20th century America, we might be able to say we've learned something about human thought and frailty.

Tempo Books gifts us a few typos here and there, but at least they also give us a picture spread in the middle with lots of vintage images. Moffett, a class act, also gives us a bibliography:

Moffet has a few other books available, including one coauthored with (presumably) his wife - not the title you'd think though! Their shared author blurb says that "Robert and Martha Moffett are both editors as well as published writers. Mr. Moffett's introduction to the animal kingdom was as a snake farmer."

Pyramid Power now and forever! This title is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Tempo Books, 1976

MYSTERIES OF OUR WORLD by Peter Briggs

Not a mystery mongering text, but a solid pop-sci volume covering the cutting edge in earth science c.1969. Author Peter Briggs lays out the debates and scientific developments leading to our new knowledge of the world around us, from the ocean depths to the mountain tops, atmospheric heights, and beyond! There's a healthy dose of natural disasters, with volcanos and earthquakes making for engaging reading. Oceanic investigation is another exciting subject, with plenty of ships dredging and scanning and netting all around the seven seas - the Glomar Challenger is here, a few years before the Explorer would launch its now infamous secret mission. 

Reading on through Briggs' explorations, dense but smoothly flowing, it makes me think. We only just saw the announcement of the phasing out of "pocket" paperbacks, and here's a relic of that soon-to-be-bygone age: a portable, dependable, entertaining science primer, readable by anyone, anytime, anywhere, packed with references and sources - put out by a relatively sleazy/lowbrow publisher, even. Nowadays google is just as likely to give you a completely hallucinated "AI summary" for your search terms as a straightforward URL ... maybe I'm just being cranky, I don't know! Google also doesn't offer as many cigarette ads as vintage paperbacks:

Briggs appears to have been a prolific nonfiction writer - here's a spread of titles including Water, The Vital Essence, which Briggs references in this current text, and a title on the Glomar Challenger.

"And if California falls into the ocean/
Like the mystics and statistics say it will"

 

True to their rough and tumble image, Belmont Tower included a two page spread of mafia books as part of their nonfiction advertising. "You liked reading about volcanos, Billy? Well how about Lucky Luciano?"

This educational title is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Belmont Tower Books, 1969

STARDRIFTER by Dale Aycock

He's a lady's man, always greets with a kiss on the hand

Protects us all, at the ready to answer our call

He's a spacer, a star chaser

Author Dale Aycock delivers some interminable space swashbuckling with her Stardrifter, as reluctant hero Gil Corbett is pulled into an interstellar conspiracy involving his lost brother Ken, his newly upgraded ship the Gabriella, and his mysterious new lover Beth, the future Marquessa of Sandyminder.

Aycock has a way with names, anyways - the dangerous nobleworld Sandyminder, the (also dangerous, and mysterious) Brothers system, Federation man Pelonyi - and she's gentle with her characters, even the nasty ones. We're all just trying to make it in this big bad universe. Her space opera tech is delightfully retro, with Corbett demanding day capsules for the pain and eying up a deadly LEM - that's a light-emitting matrix, AKA a laser gun, by the way. There's some daring space maneuvers with some plausible-sounding reasons why XYZ has to happen for our characters to make it to their destinations intact that allows for Corbett to strut his stuff as an ace pilot. Meanwhile, Corbett and Beth trade screwball dialogue and will-they-won't-they moments.

This universe is a lonely one. Humanity is limited to a few star systems, longing for a long past golden age of old Earth and truly galactic civilization. Aycock is coy about the reasons for our reduced state, but her setting is pleasingly unsettling. Unfortunately, once the plot is truly up and running, we find ourselves in Scooby-Doo mode: our heroes running around room to room, finding clues, tying up bad guys, and rescuing old man Silvernight (a genius with new formulas for starship fuel). It's stock genre madlibs, basically.

He will blast off tonight 

He puts his life on the line every time he's in flight 

A man you can't trace 

But our love will last beyond time and space

The cheekily Star Warsian cover art is, of course, completely unrelated to the actual story. At the most, Corbett could be vaguely defined as a Han-esque rogue who's been running from doing the right thing, until circumstances force him to man up. He's also a Federation academy washout and former classmate to hard ass Pelonyi. This galaxy doesn't have any alien sidekicks, or even robots.

Aycock's fair go at space opera thrills settles down for a rough landing of 2/4 stars. In the end, everyone involved deserved a better class of transport.

Leisure Books, 1981