Atlas of the Mysterious in North America - Hardcover

Guiley, Rosemary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816028761 ISBN 13: 9780816028764

Publisher: Facts on File, 1994

Synopsis

Describes sacred, haunted, and mysterious sites in the United States and Canada, including power points, earthworks and mounds, stoneworks of unknown origin, and places where ghost lights, phantom ships, mysterious creatures, and monsters have been sighted

About this title

Review:

This atlas locates and gives brief descriptions of the most intriguing places in the United States and Canada. Burial mounds, sacred places, ghost lights, haunted spots and even the locations of cryptozoological sightings are covered. Find out if your state is home to a mystery, or peruse the atlas to get ideas about where to go for your next vacation.

From Booklist:

John Keel, author of The Mothman Prophecies, writes a complimentary foreward to this book, which suggests that it was written by a believer in the paranormal. Guiley is the author of numerous reference works, including The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits and The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft.

The book is in eight sections including "Haunted Places," "Phantom and Mystery Ships," and "Curious Creatures." "Power Points" includes Native American holy places and New Age sites. Wyoming's Devil's Tower is noted both for its Native American significance and for being in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. "Earthworks" covers earth constructions and burial mounds built by Native American cultures. "Stoneworks" lists stone circles, petroglyphs, and pictographs. "Ghost Lights" lists "major sites of recurring activity," including the Marfa Lights of Texas. "Water Monsters" includes sites where strange things washed ashore or from which creatures like Champ, Lake Champlain's answer to the Loch Ness Monster, can be seen.

Sections are broken down by state and Canadian province and then alphabetically by site. For states or regions with heavy concentrations of sites, there is a detailed map. Each chapter has a brief description of the sites listed. Notes on sites vary from a line or two to several paragraphs. The index is detailed, and there is a bibliography arranged under the headings used for sections. Unfortunately, there are no footnotes in the body of the book, so there is no way to determine if a statement is from a mainstream or scholarly work or one of the many paranormal works listed. The black-and-white line drawings and maps are clear, and the quality of the photography is good, if occasionally a little dark. There is no indication of the accessibility of sites. The citation for ghost lights in Oviedo, Florida, for instance, mentions State Road 13, but not where lights have been seen on it.

This is not a necessary purchase, but where there is an interest in the paranormal, it is a good value.

About this edition

• Publisher: Facts on File
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0816028761
• ISBN 13: 9780816028764
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 178