WORLD OF THE WEIRD by Brad Steiger

"All new, all true!" Technically that's correct, in that Steiger doesn't copy/paste any prior work here, but this is another of his patented potpourris, ladled with plenty of old fashioned ghost stories and some frequent repeaters such as Ivan T. Sanderson's giant penguin/dinosaur of Clearwater, FL. Steiger leaves out Sanderson's penguin pronouncement in favor of the saurian solution, though he does quote extensively from Sanderson's mumbo jumbo about the impossibility of creating the tracks mechanically. Other big shots like that Tasmanian globster and the Beast of La Gevaudan make their obligatory appearances. Warren Smith would recycle Steiger's chapter on the Beast of La Gevaudan with some minor word changes in his Strange Monsters and Madmen, typical of their writing relationship. The Acambaro figures "discovered" by Waldemar Julsrud also appear, and have had a long life in paranormal and Creationist literature. 

A chapter on "American monsters" is some good fun, with wolf men, apemen, and giant lizards stalking the countryside! Some more spooky stuff: sea serpents, seances with the Fox sisters, and the reincarnation of Shanti Devi! Too bad Steiger fills out his other chapters with some weak sauce such as the Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences and a "quirky" rundown on phobias. Dragons and vampires get some filler chapters too. A chapter on the Navy's dolphin training program reads more sinister than weird nowadays. Oh well, at least the Cardiff Giant is also on hand. That one's a classic and even Steiger can't avoid disclosing its well established hoax status.

1970 Belmont reprint

THE END

Table of contents:

1.  Beware of Greeks 2700 Years Old (5)
2.  The Night a Dinosaur Came to Call (9)
3.  The Devil Rider of Chisholm Hollow (13)
4.  They Came to Acambaro (17)
5.  The Wild, Wild Rocks (20)
6.  Miss Morton's Pet Ghost (24)
7.  Haunted Canterbury (28)
8.  The Phantom Marchers of Crete (32)
9.  The Mystery of Lightning Balls (35)
10. Science and the Sea Serpent (39)
11. Premonitions of Kennedy's Death (46)
12. The Girl Who Lives on Bee Stings (48)
13. Tut Tut, King Tut (50)
14. Abe Lincoln's White House Spooks (55)
15. Superhuman Strength Comes to Farmwife (59)
16. Phatoms of the Ocean (61)
17. The White Lady of Lover's Lane (64)
18. The Strange Dancers Who Perform While Entranced (66)
19. The Ghost Who Was Photographed (69)
20. A Sea Monster Dies in Tasmania (72)
21. Crazy Coincidences (77)
22. She Remembers a Past Life (80)
23. America's Home-Grown Monsters (84)
24. Man's Fine Finned Friend (88)
25. From Out of the Sky (90)
26. Headquarters of the Spook Chasers (94)
27. Witches' Holiday (98)
28. What Are You Afraid of? (103)
29. An Astrologer's Apprenticeship (106)
30. The Fox Sisters and the Mysterious Knocking (109)
31. The Woman Who Saw Without Eyes (114)
32. The Beast of Le Gevaudan (118)
33. The Incredible Eusapia Palladino (123)
34. The Peeping Tom Who Never Left Home (127)
35. The Gurkha Ghost (131)
36. North Carolina's River of Penicillin (133)
37. Land of Zombi and Voodoo (135)
38. There's a Haunted House in Washington, D.C. (141)
39. The Mystery of the Medicine Wheel and the Stone Circles (147)
40. The Legend of the Dragon (150)
41. The Phantom Monk of Basildon (154)
42. Curse of the Vampire (156)

Belmont Books, 1966