TRUE EXPERIENCES IN EXOTIC ESP edited by Martin Ebon

Editor Martin Ebon returns with another roundup of paranormal writings. This time, the theme is "exotic ESP," which basically means anything outside the good old USA and Europe - Ebon says as much in his introduction, while also making the point that it's all relative who's "exotic" to whom. By learning about these "exotic" (different) peoples and sharing their experiences, Ebon hopes we can find common ground in humanity while also working to pierce the veil of the unknown.

Ebon also name drops psychic surgeon fraud Tony Agpaoa, last seen here getting a (mercifully anonymized) excoriation from Warren Smith ... Ebon claims that it's "too soon" to tell whether the Americans flocking to the Philippines for Agpaoa's cures will get results, which is a bit odd since Smith was able to say "No," quite firmly just the next year of 1969, and the newspapers had records of Agpaoa's fraud in 1967!

This credulous reference by Ebon sets the tone for part of this volume, typical of midcentury paranormal work: "Proof of all these amazing feats is just around the corner!" Some chapters are straightforward descriptions of cultural practices, some detail parapsychological work happening right now with "exotic" peoples, and some recount supposed amazing events the authors themselves experienced, like the phantom pig of Montego Bay. 

We get another Aboriginal death curse, this time written up by one Nicholas Wainwright, as well as a Maori death curse, a Tahitian death curse, and several hair raising adventures such as walking on coals and dealing with the devil dancers of Sri Lanka (Ceylon). The phantom pig is joined by a chained donkey and a haunted terrier.

One of the most interesting chapters is titled "China's Psychic Heritage" by Chung Yu Wang (Wang Chongyou in the modern style), being a far ranging history of various beliefs and events. Wang was also a pioneer in Chinese geology and metallurgy, with a page at the Northern Mine Research Society. His wikipedia page doesn't mention his essay from this volume, which seems to be his only published work on the paranormal. True to Martin Ebon's cold warrior status, he introduces Wang's chapter by saying "below the tyrannic-materialistic veneer of today's Communist China lies an ancient tradition of supernatural experience, study, and philosophy" ... that's nice, Martin.

Wang cites a few ancient Chinese texts on the paranormal, explains feng shui among other traditions, and lists off various phenomena including phantom "mongooses" in northern China which he explicitly ties to that famous wag, Jef the talking mongoose. I put "mongoose" in quotes because some online have speculated that the true identity of these animals would be Siberian weasels, which are reportedly thick on the ground, albeit elusive, in northern China.

This is a pretty slim volume, under 130 pages, and Ebon's introduction doesn't quite tie it all together. Still, there are some interesting chapters here, and Ebon gives a blurb about every contributor at the end of the book.

See for yourself: this title is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Signet Books, 1968

THE EYE OF THE GODS by Richard Owen

We've got a real throwback here, a lost world thriller set in the Venezuelan jungle and featuring an expedition to the mysterious Autana: a jagged plateau shot through with caves that are supposedly home to Cuyakiare, a surviving Tyrannosaur. Add some very modern terrorism to the mix and author "Richard Owen" seems ready for blast off.

It's too bad, then that the most interesting thing about the story is the background of its author: Richard Owen is a pseudonym for writers Dennis Fawcett and David Nott, of whom there's not a lot of information about online. The original Richard Owen, of course, was a pioneering paleontologist who coined the word dinosaur, and Fawcett and Nott also reference some paleontological history with their background on character Page Foster's great-grandfather Egil Edward Foster, who's a Cope and/or Marsh type trailblazer of American paleontology. Our heroic writer/newsman Morgan used some of great-granddad's crackpot ideas about surviving dinosaurs to juice a bestseller about the Autana, so now he feels some kind of way about helping out Page on an expedition to find Cuyakiare.

The hardcover edition

It's all a lot of cute set building that feels wasted on the resulting story, which is strangely overpacked yet empty, with the terrorist subplot and endless jungle trekking that drags on and on. It even opens on a dud note with lots of arguing back and forth between Morgan and his editor about whether he's going to cover Cuyakiare or the terrorist plotting over Prince Karim of El Hajjaz, a tiny Emirates country - his entourage is in town in Caracas to work out some deals over oil. The terrorism is masterminded by "Emiliano," an obvious reference to Carlos the Jackal.

After a lot of plot and not a lot of payoff, the mighty Cuyakiare finally gets a big to-do, and, well ... he does alright. After all that build up, the beast munches on some terrorists and stalks about a big cave like a lesser Harryhausen set piece. And speaking of such things ...

As we traipse through the jungle with Morgan and Foster the story starts to feel like one of those low budget '80s Italian sci-fi/action films - something like Top Line or Alien Contamination, which padded out intermittent special effects with cheap location shooting and would-be screwball dialogue between the leads. David Warbeck would have been great as the put-upon Morgan, and why not pair him with his costar from The Beyond, Catriona MacColl? Maybe director Antonio Margheriti could have contributed some scale model FX and a scary T-Rex, too! Maybe, maybe ...

A novel doesn't have the budgetary concerns of a film, though, so it's pretty sad that Fawcett and Nott's scenery feels so impoverished. How come there aren't any other dinosaurs, for one? A Kirkus review from 1977 calls the novel a "shaggy-dinosaur love story" and damns it with faint praise as a "winningly mindless adventure-romance." I would drop the "winningly" from that description ...

On a final note, the paperback artwork does Morgan dirty: one of the more endearing parts of the novel is how he's a middle-aged schlub, not a he-man adventurer type. Page is also noted as having dark hair, not blonde as the cover shows. Fawcett and Nott's The Eye of the Gods limps to a miserable 1/4 rating: all wind up and no pitch.

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

Signet Books, 1979 (original pub. 1977)

BLACK WORK by Macdowell Frederics

Ted Griffin is a mercenary pilot in dire need of a job ... the mysterious "Fourth of July" organization are in dire need of a hotshot pilot ... and America is in dire need of a wake up call in BLACK WORK!

Frederics' first person writing as Griffin is engaging, but unfortunately the most interesting part of the story is the roman à clef over who we come to realize are thinly veiled versions of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, throwing their all into a white supremacist terror plot to assassinate the first black vice president! There's some more details which point to a mixing of some other classic Hollywood stars, especially in the Nancy character of "Lynette Hall," who's a patriotic country music star on top of being a nympho. True to Ronnie's life, his "Craig Norse" character is just a cat's paw himself, an intermediary between the Fourth of July org and whoever's pulling the strings at the top. There's also a little John Wayne in Norse, but mostly it's Reagan the simpering chickenhawk has-been who fills in the character.

Hero merc Ted Griffin's unraveling of the plot takes too long, and the whole reason the bad guys supposedly need his unique pilot expertise seems overblown. There's only so many times Griffin can stalk around the underground lair looking for clues or get chewed out as expendable by the baddies before it becomes repetitive. Developments around the CIA are intriguing but similarly padded out. The novel comes in at under 250 pages, but could have been even slimmer. Frederics ends on a realistic, downer note that does feel earned, but there's just too much dross getting there.

This contemporary review by the NYT says that Frederics was a pseudonym for some "serious writer." Maybe they didn't want their name on a book where (spoilers here) Ronald Reagan gets blown away after shouting the n-word ... Black Work earns 2/4 stars for some interesting plays amid pedestrian plotting. Great title, too.

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

Signet Books, 1977 (original pub. 1976)

 

SASQUATCH by Don Hunter with Rene Dahinden

Author Don Hunter presents the story of one of the Grand Old Men of Bigfooting, Rene Dahinden (1930-2001), and his quest to expose the SASQUATCH! Dahinden grew up a foster child, was re-adopted by his birth mother and abandoned yet again, and eventually settled in Canada from his native born Switzerland whereupon the quest for Sasquatch would consume him, to the point of ending his marriage. To finance his work he scraped by collecting and reselling spent lead shot from the Vancouver Gun Club. He became involved in millionaire Tom Slick's Bigfoot expedition, which is described herein with mixed feelings from Dahinden and some truly bizarre details ... 

What the hell, Bob?

An anecdote which is fortunately absent from the modern Bigfoot canon has expedition member Bob Titmus stealing used sanitary pads from women's rest rooms and nailing them to trees around camp in an attempt to attract horny Bigfoots. This is, admittedly, in keeping with classic stories of Bigfoot kidnapping forest brides and the modern, sleazy underbelly of the Bigfoot genre:

From the Men's Adventure Library's excellent Cryptozoology anthology

Amidst this sleaze, Dahinden struggles to make scientists and the public appreciate the serious nature of witness sightings. The death of Slick in a 1962 plane crash robs the field of a major donor, and at times money is tight for Dahinden and he has to suspend field work. Always though he continues collecting reports, and the fact that people are seeing something out there - something that leaves enormous footprints - keeps him going. Some sheriffs and policemen have sightings, along with mineral prospectors and various First Nations individuals, and these witnesses are treated as especially reliable and important by Dahinden.

Co-author Don Hunter

Not so reliable is fellow Bigfoot hunter and confirmed hoaxer Ivan Marx, who leads his comrades on a merry chase around Bossburg, WA, with the infamous "Cripplefoot" tracks of 1969, alongside a grift from one Joe Metlow, a local prospector who claimed at first to have an entire Sasquatch captured in a mine, and then later only a foot in a freezer. 

Here is where extreme fractures appear in the Bigfoot community, as Roger Patterson, John Green, and Dahinden and their cliques all find themselves at odds over the Bossburg mystery. Dahinden is offended by the moneymaking attitudes of both Patterson and Green, with Patterson acting a carnival barker and Green throwing money at Metlow's bogus captured Bigfoot.

Eventually Peter Byrne discovers he's been swindled by Marx when he checks some supposed film of the crippled Bigfoot taken by Marx and finds it blank. Other accounts have said it was snippets of Mickey Mouse cartoons but in either case it was a bust, and Dahinden is left with a bad taste in his mouth.

Co-author Rene Dahinden and his quarry

Dahinden again, in the field

Despite his friction with Patterson, Dahinden is bullish on the Patterson-Gimlin Film. Expertise from Grover Krantz and "the Russians" Dmitri Bayanov and Igor Bourtsev is brought to bear in support of its authenticity.

It's interesting 50 years on that despite Dahinden's approval of it the film is only one small part of the book - nowadays it's one of the few pieces of Bigfoot evidence left for us to pick over, and instead of blurry reprints of still frames in black white we can watch a "hi-def" (give or take) stabilized version on youtube. But Dahinden was after the real thing, the genuine article of a live Bigfoot. 

Sketches from the Bords' Bigfoot Casebook Updated

One especially evocative sighting doesn't quite get the full treatment from Hunter and Dahinden: two prospector brothers who sighted a gigantic, auburn haired creature near Pitt Lake, BC in 1965. The creature was "only a city block away" from them but on the other side of a steep gorge, and had immense hands, "like canoe paddles" and yellow in color. The brothers also found huge footprints before and after their sighting.

Hunter and Dahinden leave out the mysterious parallel grooves found beside the tracks, as well as the brothers' description of a pink tint within the tracks. Janet and Colin Bord's Bigfoot Casebook Updated (2004) includes these as well as sketches made by the brothers. Perhaps Hunter and Dahinden thought the additional details too outré, a common tension in Bigfooting that sees "scientific" perspectives of relict hominoids set against cases that include UFO, ESP, and high strangeness.

The Bords' casebook also includes three other reports of captured Bigfoots beside the famous Jacko case, with two from 1800s newspaper accounts and one from 1940 in Alaska. Hunter and Dahinden do not mention these, as they term Jacko the only captured Bigfoot. Maybe they thought the other cases too flimsy or weren't aware of them, but the point of this nitpicking is to illustrate the varied perspectives within the Bigfoot field.

Above, the original 1973 hardcover edition from McClelland and Stewart Limited. One gets a melancholy feeling reading Dahinden's quest, and he himself admits it may be a fool's errand, but that he can never give it up. Despite his searching, he never had a sighting of his own.

We'll leave Dahinden with the last word here, as recollected by fellow Bigfooter Christopher Murphy: "You know, I've spent over 40 years - and I didn't find it. I guess that's got to say something."

Sasquatch is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Signet Books, 1975 (original pub. 1973)