Monsters in and around our cities? Don’t bet against it. There are a number of such examples. Let’s begin with the story of a retired U.K. policeman who I was able to interview a number of years ago. According to the officer, while serving in the British Police Force (service that, he said, began in 1977 and ended in 1988), he heard two tales from colleagues of giant eels seen in the winding canals that run through the city of Birmingham. The incidents occurred around 1979 or 1980. In both cases, the witnesses reported seeing very large creatures – the first, amazingly, around twenty feet in length, and both “very dark” in color. Needless to say, if the physical details described in the first encounter were not exaggerations on the part of the witness, then it was without doubt a definitive monster.

Judy Doraty was someone who, on the night of May 23, 1973, most definitely found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the star-filled night when her world was ripped apart, Doraty was driving home from a bingo game, outside of the Texan city of Houston.

“DEAR Mr. Redfern,” the letter began, “I have read several of your articles in UFO Magazine and thought you would be interested to know that my father was in the RAF [British Royal Air Force] in the 1950s and 1960s and I always remember him telling me that at RAF Farnborough there was supposed to be a top-secret office where the RAF carried out all its flying saucer investigations.” Rumors abound that, for years, the sprawling thousand-acre-plus Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough, Hampshire, England, housed a covertly operated unit that investigated UFOs in the 1950s and 1960s.

ON the late afternoon of October 4, I drove from my Arlington, Texas home to nearby Bedford, to see good mate Lyle Blackburn give a new lecture at the local library. The title of the lecture: Hunting Monsters: On the Trail of Famous Cryptids.

IN my previous article, “The U.S. Chupacabra: An Intriguing Theory,” I detailed how cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard suspected that the “Texas Chupacabras” were actually coyotes exposed to sulfur dioxide. It’s a mutagen which can cause severe mutations to animals.

Loch Ness, Scotland -- a body of water around 22-miles-long -- is mostly noted for its legendary, resident monster: Nessie. It’s a fact, though, that Loch Ness has been the site of additional weirdness.