Monday, September 2, 2024

PDFs: "UFO Encounters" newsletter (Michael Norris, USA, 1990s)

Michael Norris, formerly of MUFON Georgia, edited the "UFO Encounters" newsletter in the 1990s. He became webmaster for the "International Society for UFO Research" ("ISUR") later in the 1990s.

I tried to obtain contact details for Michael Norris by posting on Facebook and elsewhere in 2016, again in 2017 and again in 2021. Those attempts failed.

Fortunately, I was contacted recently by someone that knows Michael Norris. He not only had an email address for Michael but had also taken the time to speak to Michael about my archiving project, and Michael was amendable to an upload.

Michael Norris has kindly confirmed to me that I have his permission to make searchable scans of his "UFO Encounters" magazine freely available online. 

15 issues (scanned by the AFU in Sweden) are now available online by clicking on the image below:



I have added these issues to my folder for UFO magazines/newsletters from the USA.




PDFs : "Cryptozoology Review" (Ben Roesch)

While my personal research / affliction is focused on UFOs, I work with many colleagues with wider, or different, Fortean interests - including cryptozoology.

To help some of those colleagues, I recently contacted Ben Roesch about my potentially uploading scans of his "Cryptozoology Review". (I did attempt to contact Ben a few years ago without success, but felt that enough time had passed that trying again now would not amount to spamming him...). He kindly responded that he personally had no objection, but Ben also stressed that he could not, of course, speak for every illustrator/author of material in each issue. If any illustrator/author objects to the inclusion of any of their material, just let me know (at isaackoi@gmail.com) and I will promptly remove it.

Scans of 11 issues of "Cryptozoology Review" are therefore now available by clicking on the image below:



Ben has asked me to note that copyright remains with him and authors of the material. The PDFs can be shared freely but not reproduced in other formats without Ben's express permission. Use must be non-commercial unless Ben's permission is given.

Most of the scans were made by the AFU in Sweden (which, as most readers of this blog know, has a very large physical archive of material relating to the "unexplained" from around the world). Two other issues being scanned from the archives of the late Gary Mangiacopra by Hammerson Peters. (Hammerson has kindly permitted me to upload some of his scans to my archive to fill in those gaps).

This publication joins various other cryptozoological publications in my online archive, including the following:

(1) the ISC's "Cryptozoology" journal and the ISC Newsletters (following indications by the former president of ISC and another former director that they had no objection to the upload),


(2) over 150 issues of Rip Hepple's Loch Ness "Nessletters" (with his permission),


(3) Mark A Hall's "Wonders" (with the blessing of Loren Coleman, who had been given the "sign off" by the late Mark A Hall),


(4) the first 45 issues of the UK's "Animals and Men" (with permission from Jon Downes of The Centre for Fortean Zoology ),


(5) Ron Schaffner's "Creature Chronicles" (with the agreement of Blake Mathys, a researcher given permission by Ron Schaffner to make "Creature Chronicles" available online)


(6) "Flying Snake" (with permission from Richard Muirhead)


(7) "Exotic Zoology"(with permission from Matt Bille).


(8) "Cryptozoology Newsletter" (with permission from Matt Bille)



(9) "Bigfoot Abstract" (with permission from Mark Opsasnick)


(10) "Bigfoot Bulletin" (George Haas)

(11) Chad Arment's "North American BioFortean Review" (with Chad's permission)


(12) Chad Arment's "Biofortean Notes" (with Chad's permission)


(13) Many more general Fortean magazines/newsletters containing further cryptozoological material (after getting permissions from relevant editors/publishers). See, in particular, material in the folder for magazines/newsletters from the USA.