Incredible Stories: World Mysteries Explained

by Liz McLeod

Incredible Stories will link the Nazca lines of southern Peru to the El Nino phenomenon, follow the latest archeological evidence to the possible Atlantis site of Santorini in the Mediterranean, and bring both the Abominable Snowman and the Vampire out of the shadows. Contemporary science can now explain a great deal of phenomena, but the rational explanations the scientists offer turn out to be more scary than the mysteries they replace.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on a TV series, this book rather reads like a script or a transcript of the same. It is a bit dated, and there was little information that you wouldn't have found in a basic reader on these subjects or in an hour-long TV documentary. In places it reads a bit like it was based, at least in part, on conspiracy theories and urban legends (one chapter is on the curse on King Tut's tomb, which, at least to my understanding most scientists will agree on a perfectly rational explanation), but it does try to give multiple points of view/theories. All in all, if one of these subjects interests you, I would either watch a documentary (and trust me I don't recommend TV over books often!) if you're only looking for an introduction, or find an in-depth, academic book on the topic if you want to delve a little deeper. This one just wasn't really worth it.

[Sae-chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't see the TV program, so the book was quite interesting. It tried to explain the mysteries or urban myth that we have come to accept as "one of those things" these days, like bigfoot, bermuda triangle, dracula, and others.

Although some of the explanation weren't quite satisfying (yet)--need more data and investigations, some were very close to a valid conclusion.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book really took the magic out of each of the myths, giving mundane explanations. I know none of the things are true, that there’s a natural explanation for them that isn’t supernatural at all, so I knew before reading that the book wasn’t and couldn’t prove any of them as true, especially Bigfoot and vampires. But it was really disappointing that none of the mysteries were solved in any capacity. I expected a case closed on some of them, or at least one explanation that really stood out, but there were so many possibilities that any of them could be true.

The writing wasn’t anything special either, which was something that took even more away from the legends. I couldn’t enjoy the actual reading because of the way it was written. Some words were spelled incorrectly like they did in the past, and I didn’t know the book or the research was old enough for color to be spelled as colour, and airplanes to be spelled as aero-planes, and things like that. There were also some typing errors that stood out, quite a few throughout the book.

Big Foot was one of my least favorite stories to read about. And it seemed to go on and on and on, and I was so ready for it to end long before it did. There was some new evidence and facts that I’d never heard of, like for Big Foot to be a primate his method of walking upright over such a long distance, and having his knees bent but back straight is just illogical. It was nice to hear different perspectives from scientists that with their education and research could shed more light on the big foot theories.

The unit of measurement in the first chapter did the metric and U.S. system comparisons, in feet and meters, but then the rest of the book only had meters or kilometers. They also used Celsius for the temperatures, and I’m used to Fahrenheit and so couldn’t understand that either. I really had a problem with that, as someone living in the U.S. and only having known the U.S. measurements. For someone who doesn’t know the metric system I had no idea of the measurements, had not even a clue as to how long or big something was in the book. That took away so much from what I was reading that I was completely lost and confused.

I really didn’t like the Ten Plagues, because just about the whole chapter was about people trying to prove they didn’t happen, and that it wasn’t a literal ten plagues but a figurative one that involved the killing of the wheat, and since the firstborn child received more food, that was why they died. As someone who believes that what happened in the bible happened exactly as it says, it was uncomfortable reading about scientists trying to prove it was false. I felt bad just reading it and chafed at the scientist that even suggested such a thing.

I was so excited and interested to read about the lost city of Atlantis, and the curse of King Tut’s tomb, and the Nasca lines, but no real facts were proven. It was all theoretical and just people’s ideas. Basically anyone could throw a theory out there, no matter how little evidence they had to go on, and it made its way into the book in some of these stories. I expected some closure on the stories, because it’s called mysteries explained, but it should’ve been called mysteries explored, or mysteries pondered at, because nothing was close to being solved and that was disappointing. Some will never be solved I guess, but I just expected a little more from the book and didn’t get it. As far as uncovering the truth behind the legends, there wasn’t much truth involved. Some stories, like the vampires, were just not pleasant to read.

[Ann]

Other than the first chapter (Bigfoot) and the last chapter (Real Vampires), this was an interesting read. The book was written 14 years ago, so the chapter on Atlantis and it's location could be updated with the new information discovered.