Bigfooting in Albion

"Wildman" is Fortean researcher Nick Redfern's most recent book, subtitled "The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot".

Bigfoot in Britain? Well, no, not really.

As Redfern makes clear already from the start, a huge and hairy hominid simply cannot exist in the United Kingdom. It's too small, too densely populated (by the hominid Homo sapiens) and there's not enough food to sustain a breeding population of great apes - not unless they systematically attack and steal food from our farms and warehouses, which they obviously don't. "Wildman" is therefore essentially a collection of ghost stories. Some of the purported ghosts do look like great apes, or something similar, while others are closer to trolls or werewolves. The book gets tedious after a while, and I admit that I didn't read literally every chapter. Besides, the letters are too small, which made my eyes hurt. But sure, if you are an avid reader of Forteana, you'll probably love to have "Wildman" in your collection.

The Shug Monkey, the Apes of Shugborough, Old Ned's Devil and (of course) The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui are featured, together with a motley crew of spectres, trolls, fairies, mermaids and even hoaxes. The parallels with the UFO phenomenon are sometimes obvious, including "the Oz effect", "missing time", strange lights, the inevitable MIBs and futuristic "prophecies" of doom and gloom. There are also tie-ins with black dogs, phantom cats and shape-shifters of every kind.

Redfern obviously doesn't belong to the flesh-and-blood school of cryptozoology (although he doesn't rule out that Bigfoot might be a real animal - in the Pacific Northwest). He isn't shy about reviewing paranormal explanations, ranging from "the daimonic" to ideas about "wormholes" through space-time. More naturalistic is the idea that certain places emit electromagnetic energy, causing our brains to hallucinate. But why hairy beasts, phantom cats or sea-serpents? Could they be some kind of "racial" memory or archetype, inherited from our distant ancestors, who lived in constant fear of big cats, great apes, snakes, and so on?

"Wildman" is written in a somewhat ironic style, and is filled with photos of Redfern himself and other Fortean investigators, often in suitable "paranormal" poses. Redfern poses as a MIB, while cryptozoologist Raven (sic) Meindel pretends to be a witch. "Ghost-hunter" Joshua Warren eagerly shows a black cape, a fake alien head and a lampstand with a skull at his Paranormal Headquarters. Well, at least these guys are enjoying themselves!

In the end, I give this book three stars. But don't tell me I didn't warn you. Bigfooting in Albion won't turn up any hairy man-beasts of the flesh-and-blood, wood-knocking variety. It might still the scare the living daylights out of you, though!