Forteana in the backyard

"Backyard Bigfoot" is a controversial survey of the Bigfoot phenomenon from a paranormal angle. It also features UFOs, Anomalous Black Cats (ABCs), ghostly attacks on horses, and conspiracy theories. The author, Lisa A. Shiel, is a Bigfoot and UFO investigator who is apparently unafraid of controversy. Indeed, most of the anomalous events recorded in the book happened to Shiel herself, either at her backwoods property in northern Texas, or at her new home in the Michigan wilderness. (If you wonder how a lone woman dares to live in the outback, Shiel reveals that she's got six dogs, including at least one Anatolian Shepherd, one of the nastier guard dogs around. I'm impressed.)

Shiel claims that Bigfoot have been attempting to communicate with her both in Texas and Michigan through stick signs, including cross signs that mysteriously appear overnight. Bigfoot has also thrown rocks at her stables. Shiel believes that the elusive creatures are tool-makers. She has found small rocks from nearby rivers at her property, rocks which resemble tools used by Australopithecus and Homo erectus. More spectacularly, Bigfoot has braided the manes of Shiel's horses! After this, the story gets more and more extreme, with black panthers and red wolves showing up at the author's property in Texas. These animals are not native to Texas. Black panthers are (of course) a staple of folklore, and are often thought to have a paranormal origin. So are huge canines. When Shiel invests in new camera equipment, she begins to photograph luminous orbs and a bizarre pillar of light.

One thing is certain. Sceptics and flesh-and-blood crypto-zoologists won't like "Backyard Bigfoot"!

My sceptical side wants to believe that this is really a novel marketed as a true story to sell better (Shiel has written an explicit fiction story about Bigfoot research), or the ravings of a paranoid freak. Six dogs and a house in the woods? Yeah... However, the phenomena experienced by the author aren't unique. Many other witnesses claim to have experienced similar paranormal happenings. Clearly, something weird or Fortean is going on in the back country. (The Fortean researcher and author Nick Redfern has written a foreword to Shiel's book.) That being said, I must say that Shiel's explanation for the haunting is very extreme, and involves aliens from outer space genetically engineering life on Earth, or wiping it out on a semi-regular basis. These aliens are not entirely benign, we are told. Some ancient Egyptian rulers were aliens, including Akhenaten, always the usual suspect. Erich von Däniken, Lloyd Pye, Michael Cremo and David Hatcher Childress are referenced.

A more reasonable explanation is that Bigfoot, orbs and ABCs originate here on Earth, and that no extraterrestrial conspiracy is involved... The phenomenon could be paranormal anyway, or it could be a string of very exotic natural phenomena.

That being said, I think "Backyard Bigfoot" is a good, well-written and relatively succinct look at the "backyard" (or undergrowth) of the Bigfoot phenomenon. Whether we like it or not, these parts of Bigfootdom do exist. This book could be a good complement to "The Locals" by Thom Powell, reviewed by my elsewhere.