Borderlands by Mike Dash

by Mike Dash

Explore the Borderlands...* The charred remains of Helen Conway, whose body "exploded." Was this a case of spontaneous combustion?* Discoveries of 130-foot-long boa constrictors and twelve-foot giant kangaroos. What other species have gone undiscovered?*In England, a town is pelted from the sky by hundreds of tiny rose-colored frogs. Is this a one-time event, an omen, or a bizarre natural phenomenon? Near-death experiences...lake monsters...crop circles...fairies...visions of the Virgin Mary...Using his vast research and privileged access to case files, noted paranormal investigator Mike Dash has compiled this unprecedented collection of the most baffling puzzles of our time. Touring the globe and sifting through a vast array of eyewitness accounts and film and photographic evidence, Dash separates genuine cases from hoaxes and dares to record those macabre, inexplicable, and terrifying events where there is no other explanation except--that what people saw, heard, and sometimes lived to tell about is true!

Genres: Nonfiction, Paranormal, Occult, Collections

Paperback

First published September 29, 1997

About the author

Mike Dash, the author of Tulipomania, Batavia's Graveyard, Thug, Satan's Circus and now The First Family, was born, in 1963, just outside London, and educated at Gatow School, Berlin, Wells Cathedral School, Somerset, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he read history and ran the Cambridge student magazine. From there he moved on to King's College, London, where in 1990 he completed an unusually obscure PhD thesis describing British submarine policy between the Crimean and the First World Wars.

Dash's first job, for which he was thoroughly unqualified, was compiling about a quarter of the entries for Harrap's Dictionary of Business and Finance (1988), a volume that he researched via clandestine meetings in a London Spud-U-Like with a college friend who had gone into banking. From there, he began a six-year career in journalism book-ended by stints as a gossip columnist for Fashion Weekly and a section editor at UK Press Gazette, the journalists' newspaper.

While still at UKPG, Dash took a phone call from John Brown, the maverick publisher of Viz, who asked him to suggest the names of some possible magazine publishers with an editorial background and some knowledge of the newstrade, Unsurprisingly nominating himself, Dash found himself hired to take over the eccentric portfolio of Viz Comic and Gardens Illustrated.

Dash's first book, The Limit (1995), was published by BBC Books and his second, Borderlands (1997) by Heinemann. He has since written five works of historical non fiction, all of them acclaimed for combining detailed original research with a compelling narrative style.

Having written his first three books while still with John Brown Publishing, Dash has been a full-time writer since 2001. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

'History doesn't get much more readable.'
New York Daily News

'Dash writes with unabashedly cinematic flair, backed by meticulous research.'
New York Times

'Dash captures the reader with narrative based on dogged research, more richly evocative of character and place than any fiction, and so well written he is impossible to put down.'
The Australian

'An indefatigable researcher with a prodigious descriptive flair.'
Sunday Telegraph

'Dash writes the best kind of history: detailed, imaginative storytelling founded on vast knowledge.'
Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a really thorough overview and investigation of all things paranormal. It emphasizes that you can't look at any one part of the subject matter in isolation; for instance ufo encounters frequently are followed up by psychic experiences or ghost visitations. It also dealt with lots of hoaxes and explored the cultural and psychological impact on sightings. One conclusion drawn from all the research done is that the poltergeist phenomenon is likely to be the most objectively real of them all; for whereas people taken into UFOs in the 1960s might see pull-down chart star maps that suited the 1960s, poltergeist encounters have taken the same form since they were first reported 3000 years ago. All in all, very cool stuff.

[Susan Paxton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like a lot of other reviewers here, I found this first effort by Dash (Batavia's Graveyard) tedious, and digging through to find insights - and there are some - took too long (and I read a lot of extremely dry stuff, so I have a higher tolerance than many).

[Sharon A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding survey of Fortean phenomena. Dash is so knowledgeable and writes in an easy-to-read, direct way. There is no pseudoscientific babble. There is ample skepticism where warranted along with illuminating ideas about the scope and nature of these claims and phenomena. Highly recommended.

[R.A. Deckert · Rating 2 out of 5]

A superficial look at paranormal phenomena, from UFOs to spontaneous human combustion. The author was the chief researcher of the Fortean Times, an organization that studies strange phenomena, but he comes across like one of the debunkers who believe that UFOs and the paranormal are simply impossible so therefore they didn't happen and don't need to be investigated. Disappointing.

[Rhonda Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly straight forward exploration of strange phenomena. The write is a skeptic who wants to understand possible supernatural events but concludes that 99% of reports are either fraud, self-hypnosis or psychological trauma. It is interesting in the sheer amounts of data. It starts with a premise that seems to support the idea of the supernatural but ends up favoring psychological and/or mental illness causing hallucinations for those events that were not out right fraud. I am not sure if the author is intentionally biased or the specific events and conclusions he came to were coincidentally that way. It was still a very interesting read.

[Willow Redd · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exhaustive, but fascinating read covering everything from the Old Hag, to UFOs, to Faeries. Mike Dash presents case after case of alien abduction, lake monster sightings, strange earth phenomena, and anything else that defies exact classification within what he (and others) dub "The Borderlands."

The Borderlands are the realm of the unexplained in which the strangest things can happen to either an individual or group. Here, Dash tries to look at possible explanations such as mass hysteria, cultural sources, mind trickery, or simple hoaxes and straight up lies; but even though some experiences within the Borderlands can be explained away by some benign cause, there remain those few cases that defy explanation, remaining within the realm of the weird. And that's the most interesting thing about the Borderlands, there is still so much we just can't explain away.

Definitely a book worth having if you're exploring the unknown.

[Jaime · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an excellent introduction to paranormal topics like near-death experiences, alien universes, creatures of the nught, other worldly visitors and demonic infestation. It includes an excellent index and reference list. Read this and you will be pulled into the world of the paranormal.

[Alice Florence · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of incidents are mentioned in quick succession without going into much detail. I lost interest about a quarter way through it.