WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Tuesday, November 18, 2014

BUY KARL SHUKER'S NEW BOOK AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE

Karl Shuker, certainly one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world has a fantastic new book out. Called The Menagerie of Marvels it continues his series of fascinating compendia of zoological and cryptozoological anomalies. You can read more about it HERE. It has just been published and is no new that neither we or Karl have actually got our copies yet. However it is available for pre-order on Amazon at the following list prices:

1: 
United States13.99 USD

2: 
United Kingdom10.99 GBP

3: 
Canada14.99 CAD
4: 
Australia14.99 AUD


We are letting it go for a strictly limited time for the following prices:

1: 
United States11.99 USD

2: 
United Kingdom  8.99 GBP

3: 
Canada12.99 CAD
4: 
Australia12.99 AUD




UNITED KINGDOM


UNITED STATES/CANADA


AUSTRALIA

NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)



Lady Gaga reveals her love for Loch Ness Monter during gig at Glasgow's SSE Hydro
The singer admitted she was ga ga for the Loch Ness Monster - and Scottish brew Deuchars during the latest leg of her UK tour at Glasgow's SSE ...

Ghost-hunter finds mysterious Loch Ness picture
Does this picture show a monster in Loch Ness? The photograph was taken by paranormal investigator Jonathan Bright and seems to show ...

WEIRD WEEKEND 2014: Saturday Part Two


 Tony Whitehead (RSPB): Britain's changing bird fauna - past, present and future

MIKE DAVIS: I've found You



Another song from a happy and productive weekend. Many thanks to Her Majesty Queen Titania for loaning us the extras for the video.

KARL SHUKER HAS A NEW BOOK OUT

It was way back in 1991 when Dr Karl Shuker's second book, Extraordinary Animals Worldwide, was published. Containing accounts of lesser-known mystery beasts and scarcely-known mainstream creatures, and plentifully supplied with exquisite antiquarian chromolithographs, engravings, and other vintage illustrations wherever possible, it purposefully recalled a bygone generation of natural history books, dating predominantly from the 19th and early 20th Centuries, whose subject matter, generally a deft, eclectic interweaving of speculative zoology, the history of animal discovery, and wildlife mythology of the ancients, was popularly referred to by its authors and readers alike as romantic zoology.

Such was the enduring appeal of Dr Shuker's book's modern-day contribution to this now all-but-lost subject – indeed, eventually gaining a cult status among mystery beast aficionados in particular – that he was encouraged to prepare a much-expanded, updated edition, entitled Extraordinary Animals Revisited, which was published in 2007 by CFZ Press. Updating some of the most popular chapters from the original book and also adding many new ones, it went on to attract an even greater following than its predecessor, and remains in print today.

By 'mixing and matching' cryptozoology (the scientific study of mystery animals) with mainstream zoology, these two books enabled Dr Shuker to include within a single volume a uniquely diverse array of creatures. Consequently, it would only be a matter of time before he gave into temptation and compiled a third compendium of extraordinary animals - and here it is.

So, welcome one and all to Dr Shuker's Menagerie of Marvels! Where else would you encounter fairy armadillos and go-away birds, roc feathers and a werewolf paw, a park of monsters in Italy and mystery beasts in the Vatican, whale-headed pseudo-pterodactyls and hammer-headed lightning birds, beech martens in Britain and winged toads in France, an invisible catfish and a dicephalous kestrel, reverse mermaids and the music of Ogopogo, earth hounds, moonrats, kinkimavos, lavellans, nandinias and Nandi bears, ajolotes, bristle-heads, mammoths, hoopoes, gorilla-sized man-eating baboons and giant rhino-eating terror birds, lake monsters and sea serpents, leopons and lizard cryptids, vermiform rock-slicing laser gazers, and so much more too, all within the scenic yet comfortingly-secure confines of a single book?

Enjoy your visit, and return whenever you wish – Dr Shuker's unique collection of extraordinary zoological esoterica and inexplicabilia will always be here to mystify and mesmerise you anew. You have only to open the book, turn the page, and step inside...if you dare!


Born and still living in the West Midlands, England, Dr Karl P.N. Shuker graduated from the University of Leeds with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in pure zoology, and from the University of Birmingham with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in zoology and comparative physiology. He now works full-time as a freelance zoological consultant to the media, and as a prolific published writer.

Dr Shuker is currently the author of 21 books and hundreds of articles, principally on animal-related subjects, with an especial interest in cryptozoology and animal mythology, on which he is an internationally-recognised authority, but also including a poetry volume. In addition, he has acted as consultant for several major multi-contributor volumes as well as for the world-renowned Guinness Book of Records/Guinness World Records (he is currently its Senior Consultant for its Life Sciences section); and he has compiled questions for the BBC's long-running cerebral quiz 'Mastermind'. He is also the editor of the Journal of Cryptozoology, the world's only existing peer-reviewed scientific journal devoted to mystery animals.

Dr Shuker has travelled the world in the course of his researches and writings, and has appeared regularly on television and radio. Aside from work, his diverse range of interests include motorbikes, travel, quizzes, poetry, the life and career of James Dean, Sherlockia, collecting masquerade and carnival masks, philately, world mythology, and the history of animation.

He is a Scientific Fellow of the prestigious Zoological Society of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. He is Cryptozoology Consultant to the Centre for Fortean Zoology, and is also a Member of the Society of Authors.

Dr Shuker's personal website can be accessed at http://www.karlshuker.com and his extremely popular mystery animals blog, ShukerNature, can be accessed at http://www.karlshuker.blogspot.com

His poetry blog can be accessed at http://starsteeds.blogspot.com and his Eclectarium blog can be accessed at http://eclectariumshuker.blogspot.com

There is also an entry for Dr Shuker in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Shuker and a Like (fan) page on Facebook.


AUTHOR BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mystery Cats of the World: From Blue Tigers To Exmoor Beasts (Robert Hale: London, 1989).
Extraordinary Animals Worldwide (Robert Hale: London, 1991).
The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (HarperCollins: London, 1993).
Dragons: A Natural History (Aurum: London/Simon & Schuster: New York, 1995; republished Taschen: Cologne, 2006).
In Search of Prehistoric Survivors: Do Giant 'Extinct' Creatures Still Exist? (Blandford: London, 1995).
The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural and Paranormal Mysteries (Carlton: London/JG Press: North Dighton, 1996; republished Carlton: London, 2002).
From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings: From the Pages of FATE Magazine (Llewellyn: St Paul, 1997; republished Bounty: London, 2005).
Mysteries of Planet Earth: An Encyclopedia of the Inexplicable (Carlton: London, 1999).
The Hidden Powers of Animals: Uncovering the Secrets of Nature (Reader's Digest: Pleasantville/Marshall Editions: London, 2001).
The New Zoo: New and Rediscovered Animals of the Twentieth Century [fully-updated, greatly-expanded, second edition of The Lost Ark] (House of Stratus Ltd: Thirsk, UK/House of Stratus Inc: Poughkeepsie, USA, 2002).
The Beasts That Hide From Man: Seeking the World's Last Undiscovered Animals (Paraview: New York, 2003).
Extraordinary Animals Revisited: From Singing Dogs To Serpent Kings (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2007).
Dr Shuker's Casebook: In Pursuit of Marvels and Mysteries (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2008).
Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals on Stamps: A Worldwide Catalogue (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2008).
Star Steeds and Other Dreams: The Collected Poems (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2009).
Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2010).
The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals: From The Lost Ark to The New Zoo – and Beyond [fully-updated, greatly-expanded, third edition of The Lost Ark] (Coachwhip Publications: Landisville, 2012).
Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery: A Feline Phantasmagoria (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2012).
Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (Anomalist Books: New York, 2013).
Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture (Coachwhip Publications: Greenville, 2013).
The Menagerie of Marvels: A Third Compendium of Extraordinary Animals (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2014).

Consultant and also Contributor
Man and Beast (Reader's Digest: Pleasantville, New York, 1993).
Secrets of the Natural World (Reader's Digest: Pleasantville, New York, 1993).
Almanac of the Uncanny (Reader's Digest: Surry Hills, Australia, 1995).
The Guinness Book of Records/Guinness World Records 1998-present day (Guinness: London, 1997-present day).

Consultant
Monsters (Lorenz: London, 2001).

Contributor
Of Monsters and Miracles CD-ROM (Croydon Museum/Interactive Designs: Oxton, 1995).
Fortean Times Weird Year 1996 (John Brown Publishing: London, 1996).
Mysteries of the Deep (Llewellyn: St Paul, 1998).
Guinness Amazing Future (Guinness: London, 1999).
The Earth (Channel 4 Books: London, 2000).
Mysteries and Monsters of the Sea (Gramercy: New York, 2001).
Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained (Chambers: Edinburgh, 2007).
Chambers Myths and Mysteries (Chambers: Edinburgh, 2008).
The Fortean Times Paranormal Handbook (Dennis Publishing: London, 2009).
Plus numerous contributions to the annual CFZ Yearbook series of volumes.

Editor
Journal of Cryptozoology (the world's only peer-reviewed scientific journal devoted to cryptozoology, published by CFZ Press).

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

What has Corinna's column of fortean bird news got to do with Cryptozoology?

Well, everything actually!

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.


THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS..........

The Gonzo Daily - Tuesday
Yesterday was a peculiar day. I seemed to be rushing around like that mythical creature called the oozelum bird who flies backwards until it disappears into its own orifice. However, in no particular order, I finished another Mike David video, started this coming weekend's Gonzo Weekly, found out to my pleasure that the powers that be have restored the cumulative viewing statistics that I thought had been lost forever from Flipsnack, Tammy told me with a grin broad enough to threaten to split her face in two, that Calpurnia the tortoise has finally put on weight, I spent hours coding a 'special offers for Christmas' page on the CFZ blog, I added young Harry Wadham to the paid workforce, and ate some Chilli. And this morning I wake to piles of things that need to be done, a client banging on my office window, and the embargoed Rocket Scientists album that I have very much been looking forward to hearing. Business as usual really.
GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Tommy James & The Shondells
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/…/gonzo-track-of-day…
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/…/thom-world-poet-da…
YES interview - Steve Howe - Geoff Downes - Alan White
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/…/yes-interview-stev…
Captain Beefheart: German review (translated)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/…/captain-beefheart-…
ATKINS MAY PROJECT: German review translated
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/…/atkins-may-project…
Pink Fairies, Rocket Scientists, Blodwyn Pig, Mick Abrahams, Pink Floyd, Jon Anderson, Yes, Nick Redfern, John Lennon, Hawkwind, and Daevid Allen fans had better look out! The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#104) will soon be available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/.
It has The Pink Fairies on the cover, and features an interview with Andy Colquhoun about the current and future plans of the band including the long hoped for studio material. Rob Ayling visits legendary blues guitarist Mick Abrahams in his studio and find out about his exciting new album made with some very A-List sparring partners. Erik Norlander is very cagey about the new album from Rocket Scientists. But there's more! There is news about Daevid Allen, Doug Harr goes to see America and also gets hitched, Jon waxes lyrical about the new Pink Floyd album and then gets all existential. Xtul are still in the deep woods, and Corinna finds some real Beatles tat. Jon looks at a peculiar book about Jon Lennon and we send the mighty John Ellis (ex Vibrators and Stranglers and sidesman to Peter Gabriel and Peter Hammill to a desert island. There are also new shows from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the massively talented Jaki and Tim are back with their submarine and Maisie the cow. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and turtles having a snooze (OK, no soporific chelonians, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 102 (Steve Hillage cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/the-gonzo-weekly-102…
Issue 101 (Tommy James cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/gonzo-weekly-101.html
Issue 100 (Jon Anderson cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/gonzo-weekly-100.html
Issue 99 (Judge Smith cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/10/gonzo-weekly-99.h…
Issue 98 (Matt Malley cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/10/gonzo-weekly-98.h…
Issue 97 (Evelyn cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/09/gonzo-weekly-97.h…
Issue 96 (Oz cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/09/gonzo-weekly-96.h…
Issue 95 (Mick Rogers cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/09/gonzo-weekly-95.h…
Issue 94 (John Ellis cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/09/gonzo-weekly-94.h…

All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/

* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...
* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…
* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!
* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the infantile orange cat?

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



These Bigfoot Paintings By Joe Mastroianna Are Beautiful, Aren't They?
This is probably as close as you can get to knowing what a Bigfoot's face looks like. There's a couple more below, including a happy little toddler: ...

Bigfoot in Anaheim Hills
Reportedly shot in Anaheim - It appears to be a guy in a bigfoot suit.

The 5 Best Bigfoot Sightings of 2014
Related Posts. INTERESTING: Survivorman's Les Stroud Top Ten Bigfoot · Top 5 Bigfoot Photographs for April 2014 · Enhanced: Possible Bigfoot 

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From CFZ-USA:

COMING VERY SOON FROM ANDREW MAY

Twenty tales of High Strangeness featuring conspiracy theorists, mad scientists, hippies, geeks and miscellaneous weirdos: A group of Cambridge academics investigate a crashed UFO... An outcast scientist discovers the secret of anti-gravity... A paranormal author finds himself prime suspect in the Case of the Purloined Poe... A student has a bewildering vision of the future... Four New Agers are regressed back to their past lives... An engineer invents a new way to spy on the competition... A viewer gets too deeply involved in a TV cop show... A young woman battles the spies, aliens and perverts that only she can see... and a dozen more stories!

I'm not sure if you also need a short author bio. If so, try this one:


Andrew May is a former scientist who now works as a freelance writer and consultant, based in the South-West of England. He is fascinated by weird, offbeat and paranormal subjects, and has written numerous articles for magazines such as Fortean Times, UFO Matrix and Edge Science, as well as several books and ebooks.

It will be available from us very soon. Watch this space

BUY 'THE VIBRATING SPIRIT' AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE

This book is the second of the three ‘Judex Books’. You can read this book without having read the first in the series, ‘The Universe Next Door’ (Smith, 2013), but it is important to understand that all the ideas that I explore in ‘The Vibrating Spirit’ begin with the personal discovery by sane, normal people, that Nobody Dies, that Life After Death actually happens, and the individual personality survives the death of the physical body and continues to live in what can only be described as ‘another universe’. This conclusion has been reached by myself and many thousands of others, ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, on the evidence of incontrovertible messages received from ‘dead’ people known to us, which have been passed on to us by Spiritual Mediums. This was the subject of the first book, and I maintained that this same personal discovery can be made by most people, and requires little more than an enquiring mind, a degree of patience, common sense, and a certain amount of luck.

I also maintained that these investigations can be made outside any religious context, and that the whole subject can be explored and discussed without having to reach any conclusions about the existence, or nature, of God. The Judex books are not religious works.

‘The Vibrating Spirit’ starts then from the premise that we all survive death, and I will make no further attempt to justify or explain my reasons for believing this to be true. Anyone uncertain or sceptical about this should read the earlier book ‘The Universe Next Door’, in which I gave detailed advice on how to go about safely obtaining convincing evidence of Life After Death.

In ‘The Universe Next Door’, I also analysed the content of these messages from Afterlife Communicators, as relayed by mediums and recorded in their thousands over the last century and a half, and I drew some conclusions about the nature of the existence that we are all apparently going to experience for ourselves, sooner or later.

In ‘The Vibrating Spirit’ I am going to put forward a collection of proposals which, if true, might give us some idea of how the so-called ‘Physical Universe’ interacts with the so-called ‘Spiritual Universe’, and how these two states of existence influence each other.

At the beginning of my previous book, I said that I wanted to write something simple, sensible and sane about a subject that can look complex, foolish, or completely crazy. Only my readers can say whether or not I pulled it off, but now I have to try to do the same trick again. 

So here I go. Wish me luck, and feel free to interrupt. 

The price for this remarkable book in the shops is:

1: 
United States16.99 USD

2: 
United Kingdom9.99 GBP

3: 
Canada17.99 CAD

4: 
Australia17.99 AUD


But because we are utterly bonkers, for a limited time we are offering this remarkable book at the special low price of:

1: 
United States14.99 USD

2: 
United Kingdom7.99 GBP

3: 
Canada14.99 CAD

4: 
Australia14.99 AUD


UNITED KINGDOM



UNITED STATES/CANADA


AUSTRALIA

BUY WYRD AT A SPECIAL GIVEAWAY PRICE

Giants, ghouls, haunted graveyards, monsters, dragons, faeries, and alien big cats. These things are generally described as being part of the 'paranormal', but they have been around for a very long time. Australian researcher J G Montgomery, presents a personal look at these phenomena and more. They are not paranormal at all, but perfectly normal. And that is the frightening thought!

1: 
United States21.00 USD

2: 
United Kingdom12.49 GBP

3: 
Canada23.00 CAD

4: 
Australia23.00 AUD


And because we are jolly nice people and it is what is euphemistically known as the festive season, we are - for a limited time over - letting you buy this excellent book at a ridiculously low price. We are bonkers us!!!

1: 
United States18.00 USD

2: 
United Kingdom9.99  GBP

3: 
Canada20.00 CAD

4: 
Australia20.00 AUD


UNITED KINGDOM



UNITED STATES/CANADA


AUSTRALIA

BUY JIM JACKSON'S NEW BOOK AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE

In this new anthology of short stories West Country author Jim Jackson takes a lead in the restoration of this once popular genre and in so doing escorts us upon a wide-ranging flight of the imagination. From Orpington and Africa to Australia and Georgia. From inner to outer space. Lovers, millionaires, scientists and fugitives from justice are just some of the characters he paints for us with colourful precision. Every narrative is a miniature masterpiece in a great storytelling tradition and an ideal diet for those who prefer to savour their literature in well-crafted bitesized portions.

It is available for pre-order on Amazon at:


1: 
United States9.99 USD

2: 
United Kingdom7.49 GBP

3: 
Canada10.99 CAD

4: 
Australia10.99 AUD



But because we are all certifiably mad here, for a limited time only, you can buy this charming book at a special low price:




1: 
United States7.99 USD

2: 
United Kingdom5.49 GBP

3: 
Canada8.99 CAD

4: 
Australia8.99 AUD



UNITED KINGDOM
UNITED STATES AND CANADA


AUSTRALIA