Isaac Koi - New Uploads

The "Bigfoot Bulletin" was a newsletter published by George Haas of the "San Francisco Bay Area Bigfoot Research Organization" in 1969-1971

I raised this newsletter and about 10 others with Loren Coleman (a veteran cryptozoologist who has known most of the investigators in this field over the last few decades). Loren now runs the International Cryptozoology Museum, which has the mission of placing "as much of the field’s artifacts and literature in the eyes, and minds of cryptozoological students, as possible", and has inherited various collections. Loren has kindly told me that I can go ahead with uploading this newsletter and a couple of others.

Mark Opsasnick has kindly given me permission to upload searchable scans of his "Bigfoot Abstract" newsletter. 

Following on from my upload earlier this week of one of the best known cryptozoological periodicals, the journal "Cryptozoology", searchable scans of the less formal newsletter of the same organization (the "ISC Newsletter" of the International Society of Cryptozoology) are now also online, at the link below:

http://files.afu.se/Downloads/Magazines/United%20States/ISC%20Newsletters%20(ISC)/

I think this collection of 46 issues may be complete. 

The first issue of the ISC Newsletter includes an article giving some background about this periodical and the ISC. It stated that the purposes of the ISC included the following:

"1 ) it wou1d provide a forum for the publication of cryptozoological articles, lab and field reports, and news reports;

2 ) it would stimulate the exchange of information between persons working in cryptozoology in different countries; 

3 ) it would stimulate the interest of many scientists who have professional interests in cryptozoology but who have been hesitant to become involved in so controversial a topic; 

4 ) it would represent a responsible body to which the public, the news media, and local and state agencies could turn for advice or cooperation relative to re­ports of unknown animals;

5 ) it would help legitimatize cryptozoology as a sub-discipline within the biological sciences; and 

6 ) it would serve as a depository of information available to re­sponsible researchers, as well as a historical archive for future scholars".

As mentioned in my previous post regarding the ISC's "Cryptozoology" journal, the final "Acting President" of the ISC was Christine Janis and she kindly indicated to me that she had no objection to my uploading these scans (nor did another former Executive Board of the ISC, Angelo Capparella).

I also asked Loren Coleman, since I was not clear on the precise relationship between the ISC and the subsequent International Cryptozoology Society (ICS) directed by him. He kindly indicated that he guessed I didn't need his approval if Christine Janis had no objection to the upload (but in any event said that he would be happy to see this material uploaded and appeared to be enthusiastic about the scanning project generally).  

One of the best known cryptozoological periodicals is "Cryptozoology", a journal published by the International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC) from 1982 until 1996.

The ISC's website (now defunct, but at least partially archived in the Wayback Machine Internet Archive) stated that the ISC:"wasn't set up to attempt to prove the existence of the supposed animals that fall within the parameters of cryptozoology. Rather, it was established to evaluate the evidence for such 'cryptids' in a calm, methodological, and objective way, and to present such findings to both the zoological community and interested laypersons in its publications, the refereed journal Cryptozoology and The ISC Newsletter. The Society has done this now for 22 years, publishing about 1.5 million words of scholarly information..."

Volume 12 of "Cryptozoology" includes an article by Aaron M Bauer and Anthony P Russell which begins with the following comments about cryptozoology:

"Cryptozoology as a science suffers from an image problem. Many critics (often uninformed) regard cryptozoology as the bailiwick of the fringe ele­ment, of credulous individuals with no real credentials as scientific research­ers. Certainly, the field does attract a disproportionate number of adherents whose interests tend to the bizarre, and even to the supernatural. However, as a glance through the pages of the journal Cryptozoology will reveal, pro­fessional zoologists, anthropologists, linguists, and folklorists, as well as dedicated amateurs, are also intrigued by the field, and have established a credible record of objectively analyzing data pertinent to unknown animals (e.g., LeBlond and Collins 1987, Winn 1991 ), or applying data from other fields to cryptozoology (e.g., Buffetaut 1983, Brussard 1986)".

The final "Acting President" of the ISC was Christine Janis. She kindly indicated to me that she had no objection to my uploading scans of "Cryptozoology". She wanted to stress that ICZ "tried to distance itself from the supernatural, and to focus only on the scientific side of cryptozoology". Christine also put me in touch with another member of the former Executive Board of the ISC, Angelo Capparella. Angelo also indicated that he had no objection to the uploading of this journal.

Since I was not clear on the precise relationship between the ISC and the subsequent International Cryptozoology Society (ICS) directed by Loren Coleman, I also contacted Loren Coleman about the potential uploading of scans of this journal. He kindly indicated that he guessed I didn't need his approval if Christine Janis had no objection to the upload (but in any event said that he would be happy to see "Cryptozoology" uploaded and appeared to be enthusiastic about the scanning project generally).  

UK researcher Brian James has kindly given me permission to upload the "APRA Bulletin" (the newsletter of the "Anomalous Phenomena Research Agency) and "Synchronicity" newsletters that he edited in the 1990s and 2000s.  These newsletters included material on UFOs, Flying Triangle ("FT") sightings,  crop circles, CETI, Alien Big Cats ("ABCs") and other topics. 

"APRA Bulletin" was renamed "Synchronicity" from Issue 5 onwards.

The AFU in Sweden has helpfully scanned 7 issues.  I have added these to the UK section of the online archive.

Neither Brian James nor I have been able to locate complete sets of these ones ... yet.  I'll keep looking. If anyone provides scans of any other issues, I will of course promptly make them freely available online.

Chris Rutkowski has kindly given me permission to upload a crop circle newsletter that he edited in the early 1990s, providing annual reports on research conducted by the "North American Institute for Crop Circle Research" ("NAICCR"). 

I have added this newsletter to the Canadian section of the online archive.

This upload follows my posts in the last few weeks regarding the uploading of some of the other best known and long running crop circle magazines, including "The Cereologist" crop circle magazine (with permission from one of the former editors, George Wingfield), the "Sussex Circular" (with permission kindly granted to me by Andy Thomas) and "The Circular" (with permission kindly granted to me by Ray Cox and Margaret Novakovic). Other recent uploads of crop circle material include my uploading of the rare booklet "Crop Circles: The Final Solution?" by Omar Fowler and the 78 page report on Crop Circles entitled "Rapport VECA" (uploaded with permission from Gilles Munsch).

Following on from my starting a Russian section in the online archive (lots more on which very soon), I've now also started uploading Soviet material relating to UFO. Lots of help is being provided by Ukrainian researcher Igor Kalytyuk (and various UFO researchers/groups in Russia and across Eastern Europe - some of whom I'll introduce in subsequent posts).

I've started with the following additions to the new USSR section of the archive.

(1) Anomalnye Yavleniya (Anomalous Phenomena)

(2) Informatsionnyi Bulleten po Anomalnym Yavleniyam (Information Bulletin on Anomalous Phenomena)  

(3) Vestnik LO Fakt (Bulletin LO Fact)

Igor Kalytyuk is helping with permission issues and providing scans for the first few batches of Soviet material. 

Yesterday, I uploaded scans of Kevin McClure's skeptical "Abduction Watch" newsletter.  Those scans are now joined by scans of sets of three other newsletters edited by Kevin McClure :  "Common Ground", "End Times Bulletin" and "Alien Scripture". 

"Common Ground" contained material on UFOs and "fields as diverse as earth mysteries, religious mysticism, and out of body and death bed experiences". It included material by many of the more skeptical ufologists and paranormal researchers.  Kevin wrote at the end of the first issue that he hoped the newsletter would become known as a journal which published material critical of claims of paranormal experience "without ... rejoicing in the gullibility of any group or individual".  Issues 1 to 10 are now online.

"End Times Bulletin" was an attempt to "collate, present and analyse some of the wealth of prophetic material that sees the world as we know it ending". 2 issues are now online.

"Alien Scripture" relates to "sacred writings" (including "verbal, telepathic and other communications" relating to "aliens" (meaning "simply non-human").  It included discussion of claims of contact with UFOs and the dead.

Scans have, once again, been done by the AFU in Sweden.

Kevin McClure published his skeptical "Abduction Watch" newsletter ("AW") in the UK in the 1990s and early 2000s. His aim was "to present facts and current research about regression, and its problems and failures" and "about the linked issue of the damage done to vulnerable clients by untrained, unprofessional therapists, and people dominated and guided by their beliefs and convictions".

“Abduction Watch” included rather cutting comments about many of the “abductionists” and their work (including many leading personalities in alien abduction research and also work on alien implants etc).  Kevin McClure also debunked many Nazi saucer myths and various other aspects of what he referred to as “the madness of ufology”.  

Kevin McClure did, however, have kind words for some others within ufology. He comments on “some of the best minds, and clearest thinkers in our field” (listing Andy Roberts, Jenny Randles and Gloria Dixon) and referred to David Clarke as “a particularly good researcher”.

Kevin has been absent from the UFO scene for many years and, despite attempting to reach Kevin several times in the last decade, I have not found anyone still in contact with him. However, Kevin had given John Rimmer of Magonia permission to put his material online and John has kindly said he has no objection to my putting Kevin's material in the AFU's archive. 

Scans of issues 1 to 24 (with the sole exception of Issue 23) have been done by the AFU today.  I hope that someone is able to provide that missing issue (and confirm if there were any issues after Issue 23).

Gilles Munsch, a French researcher, has kindly given me permission to upload his 78 page report on Crop Circles entitled "Rapport VECA" and provided me with a copy of that report in French.  Gilles explained that this report relates to "the work and conclusions of the first French group to have travelled (from 1989 to 1992) to study the crop-circles phenomenon".

I have added that French copy of "Rapport VECA" to the section of the online archive relating to books from France (a section, like that in relation to books published in English, which is currently rather limited by the problems I have encountered when attempting to address permission and copyright issues in relation to books). 

Since Gilles Munsch also mentioned to me this week that he would be delighted if someone could one day translate it into English, I have taken the liberty of also uploading an automated English translation of "Rapport VECA" as part of my current attempts to produce automated English translations of most foreign UFO/Fortean books and magazines/newsletters. 

Once again, I realise that automated translations are far from perfect. However, personally I think that this translation help gain an insight into the work done and the conclusions reached (and at least can be used to identify passages of particular interest which can then, if necessary, be the subject of a better translation).

I include below some passages from the automated English translation:

[BEGIN EXTRACTS FROM AUTOMATED ENGLISH TRANSLATION]

The idea of unfinished work has always the faculty to embitter me and to disappoint me. We spent a lot of money in total, of time and energy during these four years and I would be remiss if I did not take stock of these efforts. Also, whether the (provisional) conclusions which follow are correct or not is not essential in my eyes. Anyway, the truth will come out sooner or later, no matter what here or there....

Not having identified, during these two years, any serious element likely to support other hypotheses, we were forced to admit that the hypothesis "human manufacture" remained the most "economic" but also gradually became the most "plausible" (in our eyes of course!) . Moreover and above all it was the only working hypothesis allowing us to glimpse concrete ways investigation. It was probably a "chronic" lack of imagination, of course, but why make "complicated" even before having tried "simpler"? 

The idea of a "human fabrication" passed from the rank of "speculative" hypothesis to that of of "working" hypothesis. ...

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MODEL 

Once this "working hypothesis" is accepted and on the basis of "details" observed here and there, we were able to develop a "model" that I will formulate in the form of elementary "PRINCIPLES" which seem coherent with a "human logic" on the one hand and the "physical contexts and sociological " in which it is inscribed. These" principles are: 

P1 - Principle of "visibility": 

It seems logical a priori and observable a posteriori that the figures are produced with the aim of being views and not simply and exclusively for the selfish pleasure of fabricating them, for the simple love of art or for some other more subtle reason. Findings: 

- The figures appear mainly at the edge of roads or tourist sites and therefore often both simultaneously. 

- They are often carried out on the side of a hill or on the contrary below the point observation, so as to attract the attention of potential observers. 

Notes: 

- The distribution of the sites concerned, spread over a map, clearly shows the preponderance in along busy roads. (Ex: region of Devizes, Calne, Marlborough, Alton Barnes). 

- With media coverage helping and research by air becoming systematic, this principle visibility is gradually becoming "secondary" because this visibility is now acquired fact. 

P2 - Principle of "economy" (or "least effort"): 

The operation consisting in making a "crop circle" is: 

- Risky because illegal and based on the need to preserve the secrecy of its origin, to maintain the mystery. 

- Tiring because very repetitive, requiring a real physical effort (at unusual times) probably doubled with a certain stress, all this at night therefore without any usual mark and with the need for rigorous coordination, probably resulting from an organization prior. 

For these various reasons, it seems desirable for the team: 

- To act as quickly as possible. - Not to leave "traces" of its passage (except the face!). 

- To communicate as little as possible during operations. 

- To have a well-developed working method that can therefore be transposed from one site to another. 

- To plan in advance the reason to be carried out (for the most part at least) and the procedure to be followed 

- To optimize travel as much as possible with a view to reducing them in number and length. 

Accordingly, it is logical to expect to observe the following characteristics which naturally follow: 

- The figures will mostly be at the edge of the field (or even in the corner). 

- Access to the field will be possible for a motorized vehicle. 

- A location (if possible discreet) to park the said vehicle will be available. 

- The location will be chosen so as to offer easy entry into the field (gate, entrance agricultural machinery ...) avoiding fences, ditches, hedges ... 

- Access to the figures will then be easy thanks to the systematically present tramlines (especially that on the edge there are always tramlines running along the entire field around!) 

- The pattern will be made in "continuity" (or in "row") , that is to say by avoiding going back and forth. untimely returns. (time saving and less traces). 

- The equipment used will be limited to the strict minimum (even rudimentary) to avoid overloading and the risk of forgetting. Work hypothesis : The "Crop Circles" are the work of one or more teams, at least two people each, which act in concert or independently, generally at night and with reduced logistics

- The recurrence of places will be sought in order to re-invest in solutions that have proven their validity. This increases the risk of being observed ("wild" surveillance) but in counterpart brings spice and mystery. 

- The wheat fields will be sought after because the tramlines are more marked there but also because the patterns are better drawn.

[END EXTRACTS FROM AUTOMATED ENGLISH TRANSLATION]

With the permission and help of Guy Coatanroch, issues 1 to 86 of "Gazette des Mousquetaires" (French, 2014 onwards) are now in the French section of the online archive.

This publication mainly forms a record of informal discussions between various French-speaking UFO researchers. 

I had uploaded issues 1 to 61 a couple of years ago, as searchable PDFs, thanks to Patrice Galacteros and Guy Coatanroch who consulted with contributors to the Gazette. They went through each issue to erase the names of a small number of those contributors that preferred to have their name removed before a wide distribution.  I had fallen behind in updating this publication in the archive. I'll aim to do an update once a year. In the meantime, the latest issues can be found on the Ovni Paris website.

 

I have now started a new section on the AFU website for UFO newsletters/magazines from Russia and the USSR.

I will be uploading a rather large volume of Russian/Soviet material in the near future. 

I want to start this new section with Mikhail Gershtein's "UFO НАВИГАТОР" (UFO Navigator) newsletter, because Mikhail has provided invaluable assistance to me (and many other UFO researchers) over the years behind the scenes.  He deserves more recognition in the West for his hard work.

UFO NAVIGATOR 
Only here you will get acquainted with sensational investigations, materials from expeditions and from serious ufological conferences. 

"La Lucerna De Caronte" was a Fortean online magazine published in Spain from 2010 to 2012.  

The magazine contained an explicit reference to a Creative Commons licence giving permission for non-commercial republishing and sharing.  

Jordi Ardanuy kindly brought that permission to my attention and provided copies of this magazine.

I have created searchable copies of "La Lucerna De Caronte" and uploaded them to the Spanish section of the online archive on the website of the AFU.

Rip Hepple of the "Ness Information Service" published "Nessletters" from 1974 onwards. Roland Watson of the "Loch Ness Monster" blog has referred to the Nessletters as the "best" newsletter on "the popular subject of the Loch Ness Monster".

Roland Watson has had a number of Rip Hepple's Nessletters on his blog for many years. Roland helpfully put me in touch with Rip Hepple and also supplied scans of various issues.

Rip Hepple originally indicated to me that he was "somewhat protective and proprietary" about his Nessletters, but after some discussion during the last few weeks he has now kindly given me permission to add searchable scans of the Nessletters to the UK section of the online Fortean archive I have been helping coordinate on the website of the AFU for several years.

The AFU in Sweden has scanned many issues of the Nessletters, with the gaps being filled by Roland Watson. As a result of their combined collections and efforts, all issues from number 1 to number 153 are now online. (I understand from Roland that there was no issue number 13).

Roland Watson has previously commented on his blog as follows:

"In some ways, the Nessletter is THE most important document available on Loch Ness and its Monster for it chronicles a phenomenon, its abode, followers and critics in a continuous manner for nearly 40 years now. Quite simply, a unique publication such as this should not be allowed to disappear from view. If you want a full perspective on the phenomenon that is the Loch Ness Monster, then Nessletter is a requirement."