You can count the number of must-read UFO books on one hand, but there is no doubt that John A. Keel’s Operation Trojan Horse is one work that deserves that honor. Anomalist Books has just reprinted Keel’s classic study of UFOs. This edition, authorized by the estate of John Keel, largely follows the original book, first published in 1970. A few corrections from the “updated” 1996 edition have been included, but we chose not to reprint the grumpy preface to the 1996 book or the few hastily added sentences that were little more than a failed attempt to make the book appear new. These tacked-on “updates” were not only unnecessary, they actually diminished the power of the original work, tainting it with an aging writer’s bitterness and negativity. Put simply, the original Operation Trojan Horse is a brilliant deconstruction of the UFO mystery. And its message is one that UFO researchers have largely still not come to grips with more than 40 years later. Those with an interest in this subject who choose to ignore this book, do so at their own peril.

Our big, very popular, scholarly book, UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry by Michael Swords, Robert Powell, et al., has received the recognition it deserves from Choice, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries. The review, authored by R. Fritze of Athens State University, appears in the February 2013 issue. It states, in part: “The bibliography of the UFO phenomenon is vast but often dreary. This straightforward study of the limited topic of government responses to sightings of UFOs…is an exception…Their narrative is firmly based on the available sources. The writing can be dense and sometimes convoluted, reflecting the military sources that form the evidence. A useful resource of the study of a controversial topic.” Summing up the review are these much-appreciated words: “Recommended. All levels/libraries.”

The reviews of our expanded reprint of John A. Keel’s first book, JADOO, are in, and they contain nothing but superlatives and flattering comparisons to some very well known literary figures, past and present. First up we have Nick Redfern, writing in Mysterious Universe: “What is Jadoo about? Well, if I was to say to you: ‘Try and imagine a story that is part-Raiders of the Lost Ark, part-Kerouac, part-Bukowski, part-The Da Vinci Code, and part-Hemingway and you have Jadoo,’ maybe that would help…If you want to learn about what the man who made Mothman famous (and who, in turn, was made famous by it) was doing long before Point Pleasant, West Virginia, dragged him, magnet-like, into its creepy confines, then buy and read Jadoo.” Next up is Micah Hanks writing in the Gralien Report; in Jadoo, he says, we see Keel,  “the skeptical journalist as he meanders the fringes of civilization…Jadoo chases Keel’s life of mystery and strangeness back to it’s humble beginnings, and shares with us all the tragedy, humor, hardships, and enigmatic wonder of a young adventurer whose notes on life in other parts of the world might challenge the finest American journalism of his day, easily on par with the likes of Hunter Thompson and Jack Kerouac.” Wow.

Robert Cracknell is a British psychic who won fame in the 1970s and 1980s as a psychic detective, and his book The Lonely Sense: The Autobiography of a Psychic Detective “makes for interesting reading” writes reviewer Robert McLuhan in the Spring 2013 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. McLuhan concludes his overview of the book with these words: “…readers who acknowledge the genuineness of psychic functioning, either from experience or from responsible research, may be willing to acknowledge that Cracknell is a psychic of uncommon ability. It’s true that his descriptions show the ambiguities and complexities involved in detection work, for instance having to persuade skeptical policemen to follow up apparently nonsensical hunches and often coming up with predictions that prove to be accurate but that however do not necessarily contribute directly to a resolution. However, in these and other ways the book provides valuable insights into a psychic’s inner development and the realities of life in the public eye.”

It’s a science that keeps a low profile. But its results have the potential to change the face of science itself. The science is parapsychology and its findings have been put to use in fields from archeology to medicine. Who are the men and women of parapsychology? Who are the brilliant, talented individuals who have spent most of their lives exploring the mysteries of consciousness? Why did they choose to enter such a controversial field of science? Why did they persist in their investigation and risk being ostracized by many mainstream scientists? What advice do they have for young people entering the field? The answers to these questions and more can be found in this new book entitled Men and Women of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections, Esprit Vol. 2, edited by Rosemarie Pilkington. The book contains mini-autobiographies of 21 pioneering researchers from the United States and Europe, including Larry Dossey, Stanley Krippner, Stephen Schwartz, Charles Tart, Rex Stanford, Russell Targ, Roger Nelson, and John Palmer. This work is the second in a series edited by Rosemarie Pilkington, the first being Esprit, Men and Women of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections, Vol. 1, which features the stories of 12 other notable researchers.

“Welcome to the world of Nick Redfern,” begins Peter Rogerson’s review in Magonia of Monster Diary, the latest saga in Nick Redfern’s ongoing series of worldwide road-trips in search of strange creatures and terrifying beasts. It’s a world that “ … seems to be dominated by strange experiences, strange characters who tell him tales of stranger and nastier things and even stranger and nastier doings…I see Nick Redfern as being in the tradition of the story teller, who like John Keel, uses folkloric themes in his work but weaves around them a storyline. This is really a book to be read out loud, perhaps before a roaring log fire in the Rampant Ram, or better still round the camp fire, throwing a fitful light into the darkness and casting sinister shadows.” Sydney Squidney at Good Reads liked the book, too: “I recommend this book for people who are tired of the interruptions and measured humiliations of arrogant humans who prefer to stay willfully ignorant and thus who dismiss the well cognizable ‘more’ that is offered by this world. There is a voice here for those who have been up close and personal with things they don’t quite understand, but know what’s out there.” But best of all is the praise that comes from none other than Brad Steiger: “Nick Redfern has produced another excellent title …I always enjoy reading his take on some of the classic monsters which have haunted the British countryside for centuries. What he adds to his usual reportage of monsters of the moors is a theory that some of these entities may well be spectral memories and ghostly projections. To me, this theory makes a great deal of sense. I have always wondered just where the Brits got the notion that black panthers were terrorizing their roadways when no panthers have ever existed in Great Britain in known history. Psychic projections do make for better explanations. Redfern expands this thoughtful theory to extend to Bigfoot and other such creatures. Perhaps the paranormal will not be welcome in this territory by those who faithfully search the woods for signs and proofs of Old Daddy Bigfoot’s actual, physical reality. After suggesting a paranormal explanation for a good many Bigfoot sightings, Redfern contends that some of those witnesses who have reported encountering Mammoths, Loch Ness-type water beasts, and saber-toothed tigers may have actually seen ghosts of these prehistoric beasts. And why not? …As a major Redfern fan, I definitely recommend this book as one of his best.” No wonder it’s been named the “Best Autobiographical Cryptozoological Book of the Year,” 2012, Cryptomundo.

John A. Keel died on July 3, 2009, but his works survive. With the permission of his estate, we have just reprinted his first book, JADOO, which appeared in 1957. Whether or not it is “the greatest book ever written on the black magic of the Orient,” as it’s been called, we can say for certain that there will never again be another book like it. Jadoo, a Hindi word meaning “Black Magic,” captures a world that is now lost to us—the strange, dark, mysterious world that was once called the “Orient.” It is the story of a real-life Indiana Jones of the 1950s named John Keel, who went on to write The Mothman Prophecies, which was made into a movie starring Richard Gere in 2002. This revised edition of JADOO contains material that the original publisher deleted from the book, specifically a warm and melancholy chapter on Keel’s love life in Egypt. In this new edition you will also find a review of the book written by Keel himself under a pseudonym, a few photographs from his files, a sample of his travel notes, and a proposal for a follow-up book to JADOO. If you read the book long, long ago, it’s time to read it again. The book has aged very, very well.

We are pleased to announce the publication of a book that presents a new chapter in contemporary UFO history. The author, Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, is an American Indian researcher and a professor emeritus at Montana State University. For more than 20 years, Clarke has been collecting stories from the indigenous people of the Americas and Oceania. Her new book, Encounters with Star People: Untold Stories of American Indians, focuses on the intimate narratives of contact between American Indians and the Star People who are often viewed as ancestors. Heretofore, much of the literature about American Indians and the Star People gave voice to medicine men or visionaries who often predicted warnings of an apocalypse from the Star People. In contrast, this book relates the experiences of ordinary American Indian people from all walks of life and across generations. These individuals have never told their stories to other researchers, nor were they interested in fame or drawing attention to themselves. As an American Indian herself, Clarke had access to and the trust of the people she interviewed. Perhaps the most unique feature of these accounts is that the experiencers view the Star People differently than mainstream society, and therefore the UFO and alien encounters they recount are not terrifying in most cases, but ones of wonder, communication, and hope. Read this book and you will never look at the UFO phenomenon in the same way again.

Nick Redfern’s lifelong quest in search of this planet’s mystery creatures, which he has chronicled in a long series of books, continues with Monster Diary: On the Road in Search of Strange and Sinister Creatures. In this transatlantic trek, Redfern is hot on the trail of…a Mothman-like creature in Wisconsin; giant eels that lurk in the canals of Birmingham, England; a spectral mammoth and a ghostly big-cat in American woods; Bigfoot in New Mexico; a Chupacabras in the wilds of Oklahoma; vampire-like beasts roaming the valleys of Wales; and California’s very own shape-shifting Skinwalkers. Monsters do exist. Monsters are among us.  But it turns out that many of them are not all they seem to be. They may appear to be flesh-and-blood creatures, but is that what they really are? This is certain to be another controversial work by the ever prolific Nick Redfern.

You know already that many of our print books are also available as ebooks. You can get them for Amazon’s Kindle, for Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and in Apple’s iBookstore. Now our books are also available on Kobo for their eReaders, which use electronic ink screens. Kobo is big in Canada, where they are based, but they’re also making big inroads internationally. If the name “Kobo” has you puzzled, it’s an anagram of the word “book.” Get you Anomalist Books for Kobo here!