A Suitably Scary & Wonderfully Well Written Treasure Trove of Australian Paranormal Tales

Available at Amazon.com

If you find true paranormal accounts to be as truly captivating as yours truly, then John Pinkney's HAUNTED: The Ghosts That Share Our World is more than well worth a read.  At more than 350 pages (at least 100 or more more than a whole lot of other ghost story collections out there - most of which will also most likely cost you a great deal more than Mr. Pinkney's ghostly collection), the book isn't just an excellent value; it's a real steal.

What's more, the author is a seasoned screenwriter and journalist who puts it all down for posterity with impeccable skill and clarity, and this particular book really shows it.  Odds are, however, that you'll scarcely even pay John Pinkney much mind while sinking your very eye teeth into this well crafted volume of scary good stories.  And that's as it should be, of course.  Because thankfully, Mr. Pinkney doesn't impose himself all that much on his meticulously researched subject matter, the way a lot of authors in this genre tend to do, but rather, he sticks to the spooky facts, just as they've been set down throughout Australia's colorful (though often overlooked and highly underrated) history.

Which brings me to the other thing that I found so absolutely absorbing and frighteningly fascinating while reading Mr. Pinkney's collection of creepy tales from way down under.  Australia!  That's right, it's a true pleasure to dive into the captivating culture and hair raising history of the fantastic phantoms that have long haunted that most intriguing of southern hemispheric corners of the British Commonwealth.  So even though North American readers may need to pause every now and then, and look up a few of the more definitively Oceanic-centric terms and nomenclature, believe me, it's more than well worth the time and effort.  'Cause Australia is just so doggone interesting, of course!  And come on, rich Australian history + ghost stories!  Who could possibly ask for more?

Make no mistake, this is a very well written and researched ghost story compendium, and Mr. Pinkney really should be highly commended for his studious and very objective treatment of this wonderfully intriguing subject matter.  If, however, there is any shortcoming at all in this particular collection, I'd actually have to say that it may be that the book is... believe it or not, just a bit too long!  And yet, I mentioned above that one of this book's strongest points is its considerable length....  Well, the flip side of that, unfortunately, is that after a while, all those marvelously scary details start to get just a bit overwhelming.  Oh, here's another haunted mansion!  Yet another roadside wraith!  Oh dear!  How to keep them all straight?

Don't get me wrong though.  Despite its almost encyclopedic length, this is a GREAT BOOK, and I absolutely cannot help but highly recommend it to just about anyone.  But, if I'd had my druthers (and I can hardly believe I'm even suggesting this, given the fact that I have, in the past, chided other authors in this particular genre for publishing far too many true paranormal themed books that were much too short, and therefore could have easily been combined into a single volume), but I really would have liked to have seen all this material broken up into at least two smaller collections.  Oddly enough, it seems to me that that kind of editorial brevity would have actually helped this book out a great deal.

But who's complaining?  Not me!  I thoroughly enjoyed John Pinkney's 'Haunted,' and am now eager to read more works by this relatively unsung Australian author.  To be sure, HAUNTED: The Ghosts That Share Our World is more than suitably chilling throughout.  But more to the point, all the cases are fact based, and most have primarily occurred in and around Australia.  What's more, the author really knocks this one out of the old ball park.  And then some.  And I'd say that that's a whole lot of good stuff for just one collection of good old fashioned ghost stories, wouldn't you?

The Business of Life

What if somebody told you... that while you still have time here on Earth, that what you're really supposed to do (beyond helping others - the truly most important reason for being alive) is to learn every single day, everything you possibly can in this all too brief lifetime?  But what if it's almost impossible to learn even a fraction of what you'll NEED just to fully prepare yourself to survive the next step?

'Cause what if, when "the end" finally does come, it's actually a new beginning, a step into another form of "life" that we don't yet fully comprehend?  So, what if it doesn't actually end up the way you thought?  What if all you've been told, and all your preconceived ASSumptions about what does or supposedly does not happen when we die, ends up being all wrong?  What if even just part of what you've been told is incorrect?  'Cause you know, when you crunch enough of the wrong sets of numbers, you may just fail the whole damn math test.

So ASSume nothing.  But learn as much as you possibly can, and cultivate a mind that is ever open for, and down to, business - the Business of Life.

Now... I would never say that there is no afterlife.  ANYONE who tells me that they are omnipotent or learned enough to know exactly what happens to absolutely everyone after "Death" is either a well meaning simpleton, an a**hole, or a misled, know-it-all, wannabe, self aggrandizing, egotistical rube.

Of course, if there is no afterlife, then nobody has to worry about it anyway, right?  So we can all just think what we want and do our own thing.  Rape, kill, steal, mistreat others, and be as selfish as humanly possible... you name it!  But if there is and afterlife, and you didn't do your absolute best to learn enough while you had the chance... then THAT might just be something to worry about.

But maybe the real question is, does anyone really need to fear Death?  Not if you've really done your best to do as much of your homework as humanly possible, before the day that that big "final" test inevitably does go down, you don't.

All in the Great Ape Family?

He's NOT a chimp, a bonobo, a gorilla, a human, OR a sasquatch,
but this orangutan is definitely in our extended primate family

The animal being treated in the photo above (courtesy of NBC News/Getty Images) is, of course, just an ordinary orangutan, and definitely not any sort of legendary cryptozoological type creature of pervasive, so-called "myth" and folklore, such as those infamous "monsters" widely known by such names as Bigfoot (Sasquatch), Rock Ape, Yeti, Yeren, or Yowie.  At the time the photo was taken, that particular 14-year-old male orangutan specimen was being treated for injuries sustained in the wild, by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Center in Indonesia.

Unfortunately, the poor guy was found the day before the photo op, with air gun pellets imbedded in his body.  All, sadly, the work of a certain apex predator species of extant hominids commonly referred to as "mankind."  But then, that image of the poor orangutan, and the caring Indonesian medical professional attending him, is also a very hopeful picture in many ways, I guess.  Because it shows that even though human beings are often highly destructive, we are also equally capable of animal husbandry, and numerous feats of great kindness to the creatures of the natural world around us.

As the NBC News excerpt describes, "The orangutan was rescued the day before. The center has cared for over 280 orangutans rescued from palm oil plantations, poachers and pet owners and over 200 have been reintroduced into the wild. The critically-endangered primate population is dwindling rapidly due to poaching and rapid destruction of their forest habitat as it is converted into palm oil plantations."

Once again... humans and their poaching, pet owning (not that responsible pet owning is a bad thing, mind you), and relentless encroachment on the environments of pretty much every extant species of animal on the face of the Earth.  Well, maybe not all species.  Surely not, right?  Well, at least not most of the ones we know of.  But what about the ones we're not even sure exist or not?

At least orangutans have been scientifically clarified and classified as an extant species for quite a number of years now.  And like most of us in the great ape family, they really are remarkable creatures.  Yet even when standing briefly up on two legs, orangutans are really not all that easily misidentified as bears, or anything other than what they are; one of a number of scientifically verified, highly intelligent (and clearly human-like) great apes.

And like their more or less closely related brethren, the bonobos, chimps and gorillas, orangutans, despite all their highly human-like qualities (I mean, just LOOK at those eyes), are apparently, simply not intelligent enough in most cases, to avoid being repeatedly abused by us so-called "modern" humans.

But what if there really were even more members of the great ape family out there, somewhere, just waiting to be officially classified by the all knowing (presumably), all seeing (certainly not) scientific community?  What if it wasn't just us humans, chimps, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas?  What if other highly intelligent and more or less human-like species of hominids existed in remote, densely wooded areas of places like North America, Southeast Asia, Russia, and even Australia?

In fact, there are ever growing numbers of eye witness accounts, and a steadily accumulating pile of hard evidence (though perhaps not proof positive, beyond the shadow of a proverbial doubt), that Bigfoot and other unclassified hominids really do exist in the uncharted wilds, and the growing body of evidence really does strongly suggest the existence of such creatures.

So, as the old paranormal themed saying goes, "we are not alone."  No, we are definitely not alone.

Despite periodic hoaxes perpetrated by individuals or groups seeking publicity and good old pranking fun, and the occasional miss-identification of bears and other known animals, there may actually be entire families and tribes of hominid creatures such as Sasquatch, and the less frequently reported "Dogmen," somewhere out there, lurking just beyond the current scientific reach of mankind.

Even more frightening, perhaps, is the fact that, if even a small fraction of the reports are credible, most of these animals tend to be much larger than us frail little humans when fully grown.

But... if THEY really do exist, why haven't US big brained smartypants humans captured one by now?  Why haven't we got at least one in a zoo, or in the cold storage section of a morgue somewhere?  Screw that!  Why haven't we got any BONES, for crying out loud?

Maybe they don't even exist at all.

Putting the issue of not having tons of (or even just a few) skeletal remains aside for a moment, maybe the various above mentioned cryptid primate species are actually big brained hominids very similar in intelligence to modern humans.  Maybe they actually bury (or otherwise dispose of) their dead in ways that we don't yet understand.

Yes, maybe, despite their hirsute appearance and relatively large size, Sasquatch and similarly unclassified primates are actually very, very much like us.  They're just real, real hairy - like our own species used to be a long, long time ago in our own prehistory.  Wait!  Looking down at my own forearms just now, I see that some of us are still just a tad hairy, and therefore still sport some of the vestigial physical characteristics of our evolutionary forebears, AND the extant primate cousins in our extended great ape family who still bear these characteristics.   Hmm.

And if these hypothetical unclassified primates really are that closely related to us, maybe they ain't no dummies.  Maybe they know, not necessarily what a man made firearm is, but certainly what one does to any animal that can't outrun the pint sized modern predator known as man.

Perhaps by sheer necessity, the unclassified hominid cousins among us big brained human types, though certainly not "rocket scientists," are actually pretty darned smart.  Maybe they're so intelligent, in fact, that they are masters of concealment.

If the growing evidence is in fact credible, they could also be incredibly good mimics, who use fake coyote howls, bird calls, and other natural sounding vocalizations to alert one another when potentially harmful predators (namely, modern humans) are nearby.

In other words, supposing that these animals do in fact exist, then in North America alone, the Sasquatch would definitely be an apex predator unlike any other (except us highfalutin humans, of course), who need not fear even the larger species of bears.  In which case, ONLY modern humans would be a real threat to these highly evolved animals.

Hence, the NEED, the bald faced NECESSITY even... to hide, whenever possible, from predatory, poaching, encroaching, polluting, serial killing, nasty humans.

Recent discoveries even suggest that Sasquatch and similarly unclassified cryptid species may even utilize some type of rudimentary language - despite the fact that they do not wear clothes or build shelters like modern humans.  They do reportedly build simple looking structures in the woods however, and may even use foliage to leave other obscure but certainly telltale signs of their physical presence, probably to warn one another of the possible encroachment of man, or simply to mark their territory.

So if Sasquatch and other, similarly as yet unclassified primate species that may very well be on the loose somewhere out there really are that intelligent (say, somewhere between man and our as yet nearest known primate relatives, the chimpanzees - which, although it still wouldn't make them as smart as we are, it WOULD make them pretty damn smart), it's highly possible that unless some dumb human out traipsing through the forest were to unwittingly get a little too close, and therefore appear to threaten their young (for just one example), therefore prompting a typical primate style defensive confrontation out in the open, then the average, casual forest exploring human (or even some of the most experienced human hunters amongst us), would most likely not even know that one of these highly elusive creatures was even anywhere in the near vicinity.

Therefore, whether or not it suits a given individual's sense of religious self righteousness, or healthy, but decidedly "skeptical" pseudo-scientific, pseudo-intellectual sense of superiority, its really beginning to look like this phenomenon isn't just a hoax.

And no matter how many pranksters routinely get into gorilla suits, or strap fake big feet to their shoes and stomp around the woods, all those isolated acts of fakery can never explain more than a small fraction of ALL the physical evidence that continues to mount.  Nor can it explain away all of the numerous eye witness sightings, and even up close encounters with these hairy hominid type creatures.  Many of the eye witness reports even go back for literally centuries - almost certainly even before recorded history.

Kindly also consider the fact that even the DNA of many modern humans is a hybridization of both Cro-magnon and Neanderthal species of early hominids.  So there really has been more than one species of bipedal primates co-existing on Earth in the past, and those early ancestors were actually able to interbreed.  And, yes, current scientific data does in fact strongly support this.

In fact, every single year, more and more archeological evidence accumulates that strongly indicates that not only were there more than one type of hominid species roaming the Earth at the same time in our prehistory, but there were probably many, many types of these creatures.  Many more, in fact, than various members of the vaunted scientific community were at first willing to believe actually once did exist.

Wait!  Just hold on a second here, buster!  You're not saying that science is BIASED, are you?  Uh... no.  Categorically no.  This writer is simply suggesting that flawed individuals within the scientific community are absolutely, totally and at times, most certainly, capable of applying good old (or bad old) human bias to the academic discipline known as science.

'Cause science is neither "skeptical," nor a community.   Science is an academic discipline.  It is PEOPLE (aka homo sapiens sapiens) that filter scientific data through the flawed prism of human perception.  And they do it quite often.  Probably a lot more than any of us would like to "believe."

Anyway, Sasquatch!  We're talking about Sasquatch and other potentially real and extant (as opposed to mythical and/or extinct) crytozoological animals.  So let's get back to it, shall we?

So anyway, many of the primate cousins of modern man died out a long, long time ago.  But some of them, just like some of us, may still be out there, not waiting to be discovered necessarily, but perhaps hoping beyond all primitive (or somewhat highly evolved, rather) hope, that they can continue to stay the hell away from the hyper intelligent, but also hyper destructive beast known as "modern" man.

At any rate, when considering the issue of interbreeding between early human ancestor populations, the percentage of many of us that is Neanderthal is in fact so small, that there are some groups of modern humans who have no signs of Neanderthal DNA whatsoever.  But the fact that roughly 4 out of 5 modern humans have Neanderthal DNA shows that, at one time, at least, mixing between these groups of bipedal hominids was not only possible, but that it did, in fact, undeniably, occur.

So this particular humble writer is left to beg the question:  Just who ARE we anyway?  I mean, really?  Who are we to say that some of our primate cousins (that highfalutin scientists among us haven't managed to clarify and classify yet) don't actually exist?  Better yet, who are they, these illusive hairy bipedal creatures that only some of us have only brief encounters with once in a great while?

And if they really do exist, why is it that we don't know more about them anyway?

More importantly, if all us modern humans really are interrelated enough to one another to interbreed (and we certainly are), and if Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon species were closely related enough to have interbred in our remote past (because the evidence shows that they certainly did), then maybe... past, present or future notwithstanding, it really is a matter of being "all in the Great Ape family."

So, no matter how closely or distantly related our cryptid hominid relatives may or may not be, is it possible that there is actually some of us in some of them?  Or conversely, that there is some of them in some of us.  Scary?  Perhaps.  Or, it could all just be purely scientific, purely empirical.  Like us, the big, hairy, scary ones somewhere out there may not even be truly "mythical" at all.  Something to ponder, I guess.  Until, that is, the often snooty scientific community finally, at long last, starts to take a lot closer look at this particular phenomenon.

Oh well.  As a species of collective, interrelated hominids, we, and all the members of our extended primate family, have all been around on this Earth for a more or less very, very long time.  Established scientific evidence verifies that we all existed in one form or another for eons before the modern intellectual discipline known as science helped us to better define ourselves and our place on this planet, and in the universe at large.  So I guess we really are still evolving as just another class of Earthbound animals, that ourselves just happen to fall under the scientific classification "homo."

And I guess most of us still have to wait until we ALL can agree on just exactly who is and isn't part of our own extended primate family.  Whenever that day may finally come.  If ever.

A Familial Ghost Story to Treasure

Is this the face of a ghost?  Read The Ghost Family
of Pennsylvania and decide for yourself!

A definitive full five stars for Kathryn Kaye's The Ghost Family of Pennsylvania! In fact, if this writer could bestow the book with an extra star, he most certainly would. For never has he encountered a more satisfying paranormal tale, both in terms of the actual story, AND its thoroughly engrossing, exceedingly well composed conclusion.

What's so great about this particular work of paranormal non-fiction, you may ask? What really sets it apart from other contemporary ghost volumes? A whole lot more than at first meets the eye, that's for darned sure. Although certainly, at first glance, there is the usual smattering of misspelled, omitted and incorrectly used words (that are to be expected with often spendthrift and/or hastily published e-book fare such as this). All of that however, is pretty effortless to overlook, given how well the material is handled overall.

Far be it from yours truly to give too much away about the actual fabric of this remarkably well crafted patchwork quilt of vibrant threads of frightful detail interwoven with yet still surprisingly heartwarming and sentimental pretty patterns, but suffice it to say that the author has done such an exceptional job of stitching these seemingly disparate elements together, that the reader may be in danger of nearly missing how beautifully interwoven this fearsome family affair truly is.

For not only has Ms. Kaye somehow managed to pull off the seamless integration of the contradictorily heart wrenching and heartwarming elements of a story that is at once both eery and surprisingly poignant, but she has even succeeded at including all the pertinent details, WITHOUT going overboard on the length and breadth of this delightfully haunting heirloom of a familial ghost story.

Finally, for all you thrill and chill seeking voracious readers of spooky tales out there, who just wanna know if the book is scary enough or not, there is simply no denying that The Ghost Family of Pennsylvania really and truly is a bone chilling experience, especially in some particularly "cold spots" of the fascinating narrative.

And despite the fact that this writer really does read an awful lot of similarly themed phantom filled fare, he would be lying if he wrote that this particular fact based story wasn't one of the very best he's absolutely ever read - mortal OR non-corporeal hands down.

Facts Are Facts, But Belief Is a Choice

Don't worry! In some ways, I'm just like everybody else! In many ways, I still live in the past, too. I might even be "Still in Saigon" in many ways. I may have even died there in 1967! See, once... back in 2003, I had this problem. I couldn't hear out of one ear, which, believe it or not, I did not know at the time, was just an accumulation of way too much ear wax! Old dopey me, right?

So, I went to the campus hospital in the college town I was living in at the time, where a medical student graciously began to clean out my ear. But then... the weirdest thing happened! I was lying there on the table, with some gal I'd never seen before (or since) attending to my ear, and lo and behold, I started to have VERTIGO! And I mean SERIOUS ASS vertigo! I started spinning in my body, and the next thing I knew, I was looking down at my combat boots in the jungle in Vietnam!

Shells bursting! Rifle fire! The oppressive, sweltering jungle heat, and the sun beating down on me and my platoon.... So I jumped off that damn hospital table back in "the world," stumbled over to one side of the room, leaned on another table, and proceeded to tell the nurse what I was experiencing BACK IN VIETNAM. Well, her eyes got big as silver dollars, and she shot out of that room and did NOT return.

The vertigo passed, thank God, and they sent in a guy who was much, much more gentle in his probing of my cranium, and that was that. Which may explain a lot about my life and current predicament, really. And why I am still stuck in East Asia (this time, as an often highly reluctant career English Teacher) - in various parts of Asia that I really don't like anymore than when I died as a young soldier in Vietnam.

But... hey... you don't believe any of that, do ya? That's okay, 'cause, you know what? I honestly don't know if I did die in Vietnam in a previous life (though that was definitely NOT the first "flash back" to life as a soldier in Vietnam that I've had over the years, and I sincerely doubt it will be the last). Maybe I was just somehow psychically in touch with someone who did die over there before I was born. But most importantly, I HONESTLY DON'T GIVE A DAMN IF ANYONE DOES OR DOESN'T BELIEVE! Facts are facts. And belief is a choice.