Weird Science and Bizarre Beliefs: Mysterious Creatures, Lost Worlds and Amazing Inventions

251 Pages·2008·13.48 MB·English

by  Gregory L. Reece

weird science
bizarre beliefs
and
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Gregory L Reece is an independent writer and scholar based
in Montevallo, Alabama, whose research and publishing
interests include philosophy of religion and the study of new
religious movements. His previous books were Elvis Religion:
The Cult of the King (2006) and UFO Religion: Inside Flying
Saucer Cults and Culture (2007), both published by I.B.Tauris.
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mysterious creatures,
lost worlds, and amazing
inventions
Gregory L. Reece
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Published in 2009 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
In the United States of America and Canada
distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © 2009 Gregory L. Reece
The right of Gregory L. Reece to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any
part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, eletronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher.
ISBN 978 1 84511 756 6
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset by JCS Publishing Services Ltd, www.jcs-publishing.co.uk
Printed and bound in the USA
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This book is for Kristen.
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
part one: Bigfoot in Paris 9
1 Bigfoot 11
2 Cryptozoology 45
3 The Spirit of Sasquatch 71
part two: Among the Arkansas Cave People 101
4 Lost Worlds 103
5 The Hollow Earth 129
part three: Psychic Brainwaves from Space 165
6 Ancient Wonders 167
7 Tesla Technology 193
Conclusion 221
Bibliography 227
Index 233
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Illustrations
1 1957’s Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas 15
2 The ‘Searching for Bigfoot’ equipment trailer 24
3 A Bigfoot print, near Paris, Texas 31
4 A frame from the famous Patterson-Gimlin footage 32
5 Texas Chupacabras or coyote with mange? 55
6 The Mothman Statue, Point Pleasant, West Virginia 57
7 The famous ‘surgeon’s photograph’ of the Loch Ness
Monster 63
8 The author as the Fouke Monster 72
9 Smokey’s Two-Books Bookstore, Fouke, Arkansas 73
10 Andre the Giant as Bigfoot in TV’s The Six Million Dollar
Man 90
11 Smokey’s Monster 98
12 A map of Atlantis 104
13 Churchward’s map of Atlantis and Mu 109
14 Ronald Colman relaxes in Shangri La, in Frank Capra’s
Lost Horizon 118
15 Dr. Paul Schliemann’s diving armor 122
16 Nazi Atlantean underwater gladiators from outer space
in Warlords of Atlantis (1978) 125
17 1951’s Superman and the Mole-Men 131
18 The Iron Mole in At the Earth’s Core (1976) 140
19 Caroline Munro as a beautiful troglodyte 141
20 A map of the Hollow Earth 156
21 The Descent (2005) 162
22 An Easter Island statue 175
23 Coral Castle 182
24 The Extra Low Frequency Modulator 189
25 Nikola Tesla reading 198
26 David Bowie as Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006) 200
27 A table-top model of the OTC X-1 204
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