Comments on: Stranger Than Science: "Astounding stories of strange events - all absolutely true!"

By: Justin Sage

Justin Sage — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:54:00 +0000

FATE Magazine did it, too.

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:50:00 +0000

These things, and the Charles Fort stuff that they were inspired by always annoyed me because they get the readers to think “hey, there’s all this cool stuff science is ignoring!” when in fact if any of this had any real evidence science would be all over this. Who wouldn’t want to earn fame by discovering the Yeti or anti-gravity or whatever?

By: Milton Pope

Milton Pope — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:44:00 +0000

I sometimes identify my late high school years as “My Frank Edwards period”. The universe was very interesting in those days.

By: Steve Miller

Steve Miller — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:02:00 +0000

Edwards had a pretty long career in radio, then switched to TV in Indianapolis after getting dumped as the national voice of the AFL. A firm believer in other-worldly origins of UFOs, he wrote “Flying Saucers, Serious Business” in addition to the “Strange This-and-That” books. Interesting profile can be found here: http://www.saturdaynightuforia.com/html/articles/articlehtml/ourspeakertonight-frankedwards.html

By: SumAnon

SumAnon — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:50:00 +0000

Yea, I clicked the link and was greeted by ‘paperback $69.01/$101.82′

By: Ramone

Ramone — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:26:00 +0000

Guess the cheap copies got scooped off of Amazon. The least expensive is now more than $20.

By: creesto

creesto — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:22:00 +0000

I missed the earlier post. I, too had a copy of Strangely Enough, by C.B. Colby and when I saw the title in your post, I had to google the cover and it was excactly how I remembered it: huge staring eye in a foreboding landscape. I reread that soooo many times as a young teen

By: jrlogue

jrlogue — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:09:00 +0000

I had all of Frank Edwards’ books as a kid. He also had a radio show in the 60′s called “Strangest of All.”

By: Rider

Rider — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:58:00 +0000

It’s a step above Weekly World News. Usually these stories are somewhat true or at least urban legends. They simply just leave out any facts that might show the story is easy explained. For example below, yes people thought there was a sea monster on the shoreline, however they fail to mention that biologist quickly identified it.

By: Rider

Rider — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:54:00 +0000

The sea monster carcass is most likely based on a real true event. I know there is a famous sea monster case that took place along the British coastline, it turned out to be a whale carcass I’ve seen video of vertebra from it in jars that stored at some museum somewhere.

By: Roger T

Roger T — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:37:00 +0000

I still have that book, and some of his others, and I’m bummed that it’s only worth 61 cents. Meanwhile my Skateboarder magazines from the 70s that were stolen are worth big bucks!

By: aurora50

aurora50 — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 07:50:00 +0000

I had that book! bought in 1960 or 61 through the Scholastic Book Service. Seems odd now that it was offered to 4th graders…I kept that book for years (it was the perfect ‘bathroom book’!) and credit it with imbuing me with a skepticism for authority.

By: Petzl

Petzl — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 06:53:00 +0000

Isn’t this just a different spin on Weekly World News?

By: vsherbie

vsherbie — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:27:00 +0000

These books are part of a mini-genre of works that collect stories of the unexplained but make no attempt to explain them. They trace back to Charles Fort and are sometimes called Fortean. There were even Fortean societies for people who got really into the stuff. /pedantry

By: baryogenesis

baryogenesis — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:14:00 +0000

Flying Saucers – Here and Now! from 1967, was I believe his final book. He wrote an autobio called My First 10,000,000 Sponsors about his radio career, begun in 1923 at Pittsburgh’s KDKA.. I owned copies of all his books, still have a few.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:09:00 +0000

Ah! I was trying to remember Frank Edward’s name when reading Mark’s Strangely Enough story.

Edwards wrote many books. They, or special abridged versions of them, were sold by Scholastic for the kiddie crowd.

I was a avid consumer of UFO stories when I was 12 and 13. I soon soured on the whole notion. One reason was the incestuous nature of the books and magazines and TV specials. They reported the same or similar stories, going back decades. Nothing ever really new, with really crappy scientific explanations of alien technology. I was too demanding an audience I guess.

By: Rusty Shackleford

Rusty Shackleford — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:25:00 +0000

FLYING SAUCERS – SERIOUS BUSINESS

brb memegenerator

By: DreamboatSkanky

DreamboatSkanky — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:09:00 +0000

That’s it! I had “Strange World” by this guy. Little brother and I wore it out going back to these great, crazy stories.

By: Pat L

Pat L — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 02:18:00 +0000

I remember that book well. When I was a kid, my uncle gave us a tape recorder, the kind with the big spools of tape (this was before cassettes, around 1970). Among other things, we recorded stories out of that book like we were doing a radio show. What fun!

By: David Martin

David Martin — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 02:15:00 +0000

I’m all over goose bumps. The Lang story has stayed with me my whole life. There is a postscript to it that said years later his children heard his voice calling as if from far away near that spot at twilight. It faded and they never heard it again. Ordered a copy to share with my geeky kiddeaux. Thanks for reminding me of this!

By: Elisabeth Zero

Elisabeth Zero — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 01:59:00 +0000

I could have sworn the David Lang story was also published in Strangely Enough, covered yesterday. However, I was the kind of kid who probably had both of these books plus countless similar others.

By: hankchapot

hankchapot — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 01:58:00 +0000

Wasn’t there a companion book called stranger than truth? My big brothers scared the heck out of me with these stories.

By: Romeo Vitelli

Romeo Vitelli — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 01:44:00 +0000

The David Lang story is an old hoax which seems to be based on an short story by Ambrose Bierce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lang_%28missing_person%29#David_Lang_and_Oliver_Larch