I Know What I Saw

Modern-Day Encounters with Monsters of New Urban Legend and Ancient Lore

By: Linda S Godfrey

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman

Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

Which came first - the monster or the myth? Journalist Linda Godfrey investigates present-day encounters with mysterious creatures of old.

The monsters of ancient mythology, folklore, and more contemporary urban legend have long captured the popular imagination. While most people in America today relegate monsters to just that - our imaginations - we continue to be fascinated by the unknown. Linda Godfrey is one of the country's leading authorities on modern-day monsters and has interviewed countless eyewitnesses to strange phenomena. Monsters evolve, taking on both new and familiar forms over time and across cultures. In this well-researched book, Godfrey explores uncanny encounters with werewolves, goatmen, Bigfoot, and more.

In more than 25 years spent "chasing" monsters, Godfrey has found that it often remains unclear whether the sightings are simply mistaken animals, hoaxes, or coincidence. When all the speculation is said and done, one question remains for fans and researchers: Are the creatures "real", or are they entirely "other-world"? Godfrey suspects that it isn't an either/or question - our reality operates on a scale from dense matter to realms the human eye cannot see. 

As Godfrey investigates unexplained phenomena, her search for answers will fascinate casual observers and enthusiasts alike.

©2019 Linda S Godfrey (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"A striking collection of cryptozoological creatures and fantastical folklore from North America.... This quirky, deeply researched guide will be a great resource for monster hunters." (Publishers Weekly)

"It seems that there are still bits of the 'goblin universe' out there - Goat Men, Puckwudgies, Spook Pooches and more. Ms. Godfrey gives an admirably tantalizing but evenhanded guide to them." (Wall Street Journal)

“The shadowy realm of monsters and weird human-animal hybrids is not limited to the ancient, dusty past, but exists right alongside us today, revealing itself in terrifying ways. There is no better navigator through this bizarre and scary landscape than Linda S. Godfrey, one of the most outstanding researchers in the cryptid field. This book will both thrill and chill you." (Rosemary Ellen Guiley, author of The Encyclopedia of Angels) 

A real let down

I had pretty high hopes for this based on all the good reviews it got. One comment that stuck in my head was "she presents the facts and let's you decide". That is not what is in this book. The author does a good job of repeating tales told to her in a respectful way free of judgment, but it's what she does AFTER that that's problamatic.

She throws out endless streams of assumptions that unproven and almost certainly impossible things as facts and then builds from their. She strings out good strings of "if this is true then this is true and this is likely", but the issue is a lot of the things she is staying as true or likely aren't. Its a string of facts that if even one fact is untrue it collapses and often most of their "facts" are just unproven nonsense.

A good example was the people she said might be head transplant patients, three teenagers with reported faces of old men. She talks about a man who has claimed to be preparing to do a head transplant as proof that head transplants are possible. First, he has not even tried the surgery and is a well known con artist. That aside, the procedure has not even been tried, much less succeeded yet. But she uses the assumption that it's possible as a jumping off point then presents as self-evident fact that any old person getting a head transplant would of course put it on as young a body as possible. She then throws out "fact" after fact that "must" be true, All of them based on previous "facts" and all of which would be untrue if even one of the previous "facts" weren't true.

Great book narrator makes all the difference

Great book narrator makes all the difference telling these stories in this book makes u feel u are in it

Fun, but like all such things, kind of silly

I enjoy this one. The narration is perfect -- Zackman sounds just like the lecturer/NPR host/cryptoprofessor Godfrey writes herself to be.

I have forever loved cryptozoology and related subjects, and have a vast library of books, magazines, articles, art, etc., all about the wonderful world of the weird. This book fits right in.

Yet as happens in most such works, the author makes some logical, procedural errors. Godfrey's main mistake or oversight is that the plural of anecdote is not data. The reliability of an eyewitness is never more or less than it always is; your odds of being a credible witness do not increase with the amount of times you claim sanity, sobriety or expertise. Being human doesn't mean you are automatically wrong, but it sure doesn't mean you are a perfect observer either.

A minor peeve is the mention of various scary clown pop culture references but completely ignoring Pennywise from IT.

But the biggest issue I have with this one is that it really ought to be called 'Various Dog Things.' The VAST majority, like, 3/4 of the work are about mysterious dogs, dire dogs, witch dogs, and other kinds of unknown dog-like dog monsters. Go Dog Go, for the National Enquirer set. It gets very, VERY samey.

But it's still fun for most of the front section and the narration has exactly the kind of strident, dramatic pseudoseriousness that one would want from this kind of material. You can hear the smirk in the seriousness, and that makes it very fun.

Disappointed!

This story was very repetitive - looping back to wolf people. There are so many great urban myths to
touch on, but many were not discussed or they were skimmed over.
The voice narration was so hard to listen to. The narrator kept switching from a soft feminine voice
to a deeper robot like voice. It was grading and a bizarre pick for the voice. I’m just disappointed and had hoped this would be really elaborative and fascinating.

Exhaustive research into cryptids in North America

Linda Godfrey has compiled great stories from Americans who’ve seen things they don’t understand. Her knowledge and presentation of facts dispassionately leaves room for interpretation yet entertains you while giving you the creeps.
Bill Richardson

just a catalog

unfortunately the author does not expand on her research and only creates a catalog of myths and legends. anyone who has had an interest in this area knows the stories and myths that she's talking about and does not require the catalog. I was hoping that she would expand into her research regarding the background and reality of some or any of these Legends.

Good listen while you work

I love this type of book, it's about cryptids, but doesn't force the author's belief of them on you. You are given the information, and allowed to decide for yourself. There were a few spots where it seemed to ramble, only to pull it back to together and leave you with an A-HA! moment.

A reciting of letters received by the author

This book was a little bit of a let down. the descriptions of mysterious animals were interesting but the entire book was literally just the author discussing letters she received from people about "sightings", and calling it "research".

Interesting anecdotes but a overall kinda dull.

Good Narrator, Repetitive Story

Simply repetitive. Too many stories about dog like creatures etc. and this coming from someone who loves dogs. The narration is quite nice. She is consistent, nice to listen to, and makes it feel like your listening to an NPR expose’ on cryptids and the weird.
Also, the author does clear jumps of logic that are based on the most flimsy facts a caterpillar’s breath could knock it down. I don’t expect the most solid investigative journalism in this genre of study but, it could have been left to something more solid then conjecture.

Definitely Worth A Listen

If you're the kind of person who likes to hear stories about strange, unexplainable and often creepy things, this is right up your alley. But if you're like me and you enjoy the stories but don't really believe in any of it, this might not be the book for you.

The author obviously has had enough personal experiences to believe in lots of unexplainable events and that comes through in her writing. These stories are often presented as fact and there is very little in the way of critical exploration. This isn't a dig at her at all, if she chooses to take the events detailed here as real, more power to her. I just personally enjoy books that question the tales more than this one does.

Still an entertaining listen, though! Definitely enjoyed this book.

Interesting and well narrated.

So often a good audiobook can be spoiled by poor narration, not with this book! Excellent narration and well written, engaging and entertaining.
Better than many of the books in this genre, I really liked the authors style of writing, the accounts were varied, though if I had one criticism it would be that they were a little heavy on the ‘Dogman’ side. The author explained this however. I look forward to further publications.

a pleasure to listen

played this book start to finish straight away. Amazing, well narrated and never dull

I know what I read

I've been a fan of author for many years and have probably listened to each and every podcast she has been on.
this is the first book I've read in full and I'm not disappointed in the least, so much more detail and depth than what I've heard before
so if like me you have been a fan for years and believe you won't gain more from reading Linda's books you will

No charisma or charm to this at all. Tough listen.

I had to give up after several attempts as the delivery is so weird it's hard to even judge the quality of the stories. I love a bit of spooky lore but the narrator seems to just rush through everything in a punchy, urgent, abrasive way such that I ended up not really taking any of it in and didn't enjoy it at all and sometimes couldn't even differentiate when we'd moved onto another story.

A gripping story

I would recommend this to all who are interested in legendary beasts of north and South America

Interesting stories!

I really enjoyed this book. I wasn’t expecting it to be sort of a book of short stories, I thought it might dig a little deeper - but the stories were told well and the narration was very good!

Good encounters but poor narration

Well as to expect from Linda Godfery is very interesting and most of the time believably genuine experiences of witnesses. It's mainly dogman she is associated with but this book has a large range of different types of beings. What ruins the enjoyment of this book of the poor narration. Well.. When I say poor Its not so much the actual reading but just the voice itself! It's rather annoying and goes right through you & therefore there's only so much at any one time I can listen to, so took a while to get through it. At first I wasn't quite sure if I was listening to 2 different narrators, a grown woman and a boy of about 12 or 13! But I soon realised it was the same person, a grown adult woman that suddenly goes into a different nasaly drone. The reading itself is fluent except that she rushes through it, particularly the quotes/witness descriptions. It's not as bad when just reading the non quotation parts like when it's the author talking but it's mainly when she starts reading people's encounters, her voice turns into a nasaly, geeky sounding 13yo boy who's voice is not quite fully broken yet! Accompanied by a tone that is almost mocking and cheapens the content. I'm sure a different narrator would make this book have a totally different feel to it and sound much better. As like the fairly hard to find greatly written book narrated by a great narrator you can totally lose yourself within the stories, it's impossible to do so with this narrator as you are constantly aware of the annoying teenage boy nasal drone racing through it. Especially when she drops back to a more normal adult woman's voice here and there in the parts where its the author talking to us & then suddenly goes into the other tone of voice when it's the witness speaking. It just makes you think you're being read to by a 13yo, spotty, skinny, geeky schoolboy in glasses. Not that there's anything wrong with 13yo boys who fit that discription of course but in places or reading books you'd expect to see or hear them read from however THIS book is not one of them! Which is a real shame as this is a really well written book. I wish authors would listen to the narrators before allowing them to narrate their books.

Good book. However, the file is broken

I tried to overlook the glitches, audio drop-outs and double chapter intros throughout this excellent book as I love the author and wanted to keep the title in my library. Finally, after the tally of faults reached a dozen or more, I'd had enough and decided to return it. Note: I've reported the problem but that doesn't mean amazon will do anything to fix the problem.