Hunting Monsters

Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths

By: Darren Naish

Narrated by: Eric Meyers

Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and the yeti have long held a fascination for people the world over. Debates about their actual existence or what they might really be have continued for decades, if not centuries. Known also as cryptids, they have spawned a body of research known as cryptozoology. This entertaining book looks at the evidence of these mysterious monsters and others and explores what they might really be (if they exist at all), why they have been represented as they have, and the development of cryptozoology and how it has collected data to discover more about these unknown creatures.

©2017 Arcturus Holdings Limited (P)2017 Arcturus Digital Limited

This Year’s Textbook

If you’re looking for a book that credulously accepts eyewitness testimony of monsters at face value, look elsewhere. If you want to learn about scientific rigor AND THE social and psychological dimensions of mystery animals, this book is perfect. It’s going to be the textbook for my freshman seminar this year.

A skeptical and cultural look at some favorite monsters

If you’re familiar with the writing of Darren Naish already, whether from blogs or podcasts etc., this book is something of a “greatest hits” of his cryptozoological discussions. If you’re a fan of monsters from a cultural, historical and psychological standpoint then this book is for you. I never grow tired of expanding my historical understanding of these cultural phenomena and although I’m a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic there’s always great fun to be had to revisit these beasties that got a childhood me interested in science to begin with.

All-in-all a short and educationally rich listen.

We should take back Cryptozoology

A very refreshing and level headed take at the cryptozology phenomena. Some seem to think it too critical, but it actully gives everything a fair shake and allows some room for praise to enthusiasts, while outlining the follies.

Some people tend to be blind believers in such subjects while others are more productive, and as someone with an interest in crypzoo, but disauded by the abundance of bad faith actors in the community, this book gives me hope one day a new movement more centered on scientific standards and anthropological value can come from this whole weird world of monster hunting.

A must read

I loved every second of this audiobook. Darren Naish is an amazing author and this book is a must read title for anyone even remotely interested in cryptozoology. 10/10 Well worth the credit.

Delightfully no-nonsense take on cryptozoology

A very clear and focused examination on the cryptozoology and recorded cases of sightings. I do wish it had had a stronger coverage on the psychological and folkloristic aspects of cryptids and the surrounding phenomena, but perhaps such could’ve pushed the book too far into speculative territory.

A monster book for the skeptical monster lover.

An interesting history of cryptozoology, without the usual patronizing mystery mongering. A great companion to Abominable science by Loxton and Prothero.

Underwhelming and Disappointing

In general, I felt that the narrator did well, but the good things to say about this text end very soon thereafter. My sense was that, while I like some of Naish’s approach to considering cultural and social factors that could influence reports of cryptids, the great paucity of primary and secondary sources to back up the claims, the lack of illustrations or photos connected to cryptids, and the assumption that eyewitness testimony should be all but thrown out as evidence led me to find much to be desired in this text.

Further, as a social scientist (trained in developmental psychology) who has begun developing scholarship in parapsychology and cryptozoology, I find the disparagement of first-person memory and the paranormal as not being scientifically valid or reliable to be lacking in nuance at best and misleading/disingenuous at worst.

Moreover, the poor treatment of evidence in favor of the Patterson-Gimlin film, the Bossburg tracks, the Skokie casting, and some of the other audiovisual and trace evidence in support of relict hominoids felt like the very kind of cherry-picking of data that the author laments in cryptid believers and enthusiasts. The lack of robust support for Naish’s claims that hominoids such as Sasquatch are likely hoaxes or misidentifications led me to reconsider everything else that he said in the text. In other words, because of the lack of fair and rigorous discussion of the merits of the available evidence of these “cryptohominids” led me to take everything else that was stated in the text, both before and after this section, with a very large grain of salt.

If one were to take the book content at face value, one may come to believe that the only reason that cryptids exist is because of some cultural inclination to imagine them, some psychological compunction to misremember or misidentify real animals, or some combination thereof. But given the great wealth of data that exists on cryptids (which actually includes compelling, consistent narratives from Indigenous and other sources the world over), the exact opposite seems to be true, at least in the case of relict hominoids: while misidentifications and hoaxes surely exist, there is enough data to strongly suggest the existence of such beings. And despite what Naish May have the reader believe, there is actually very little to suggest that the Patterson-Gimlin film is a hoax. In fact, it is most likely still, over fifty years after it was taken, one of the best pieces of modern evidence available that suggests the existence of large, hairy hominoids unrecognized by contemporary Western science.