Secrets, Lies, Privilege, and Power. An in-depth look at the hidden force and the inner workings of secret societies! Claims and counter-claims. Accusations and allegations. NSA spying and suppressed evidence. Cover-ups and threats. Documented connections and intrigue. Suggestions of a New World Order. Are we to believe the coincidences are mere chance? Might the paranoid be on to something? Who really holds the levers of power? History admonishes us to be vigilant of hidden plots and nefarious agendas of governments and the powerful. Exposing their deep reach into the operations of today's world, Secret The Complete Guide to Histories, Rites, and Rituals is packed with details on nearly 200 organizations, their histories, founding members, backgrounds, and suspected conspiracies. It uncovers and probes the hidden agendas of these secret cabals. Along the way, it debunks myths and presents the evidence on an invisible world of influence. Powerful cliques, their plots, and their chilling affects are examined, including ...
Nick Redfern is a British best-selling author, Ufologist and Cryptozoologist who has been an active advocate of official disclosure, and has worked to uncover thousands of pages of previously-classified Royal Air Force, Air Ministry and Ministry of Defence files on UFOs dating from the Second World War from the Public Record Office.
He has has appeared on a variety of television programmes in the UK and works on the lecture circuit, both in the UK and overseas, and has appeared in internationally syndicated shows discussing the UFO phenomenon. He is also a regular on the History Channel programs Monster Quest and UFO Hunters as well as National Geographic Channels's Paranormal and the SyFY channel's Proof Positive.
Redfern now lives in Texas and is currently working as a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO sightings, government conspiracies, alien abductions and paranormal phenomena, and also works as a feature writer and contributing editor for Phenomena magazine and writes regularly for other magazines and websites.
In 2007 Universal Studios bought the rights to Redfern's book: "Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monster, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs and Ape-Men" in the hopes of making a movie from it.
Oh man, this book combines elements of two of my favorite old-school TV shows: "Mythbusters" and "X-Files". With a dash of "Unsolved Mysteries" (anyone remember Unsolved Mysteries? if you grew up in the 80s & 90s, you do). The book crossed my desk this morning and, before putting ot out on the New Shelf, I had to give it a quick browse.
Actually I didn't even get all the way through it, because one of my regular teen patrons passed by the desk and snapped it up before I could finish exploring. (totally love that this happened, by the way. means I'm doing something right....OR am I secretly planting reading suggestions into young minds by subtally calling attention to said reading material? YES! All the minds will flood with the uncontrollable desire to read! The literate will take over the world! BWAhahahaha!). I will come back to it at some point. I enjoyed what I read thus far...
From what I read, this is a book filled with info about conspiracy theories, secret clubs and cliques (and I don't just mean your local Book Club...or DO I? after all, the first rule of Book Club is you don't talk about Book Club. We hard-core readers are a sneaky bunch, and when you put lots of us together -watchout!- it can get dangerous), things that go bump in the night, and all kinds of wierd, wacky, and spooky stuff throughout history. Stuff that would make a mildly paranoid person freak out. Everything is in aphlabetical order and summarized in bite-sized bits for easy referrals and cross referencing. The author is not trying to sell these theories or clubs/cliques. It's acutally pretty informative and unbiased. The writers did their homework. But it was by no means dry.
It actually reminded me a bit of an encounter I had several years back when I was doing a spot of writing for a local newspaper: I was tasked with interviewing a local jazz musician who'd been playing around the area for a good 50 years. He was an elderly gent, in his 70s or 80s, sporting a Sinatra-esque fedora and chain-smoking cigars that reeked of raw sewage. We met up at the local pub where he'd be playing a gig later that evening. Being a musician myself, I was excited to rap with him about his craft, his experiences. What a story, right? What I got instead was the ravings of a madman who was more than likely entering the advanced (and undiagnosed) stages of dementia. With eyes swirling, he proceeded to fill me in (IN DETAIL) on all sorts of f*ed-up conspiracy theories. How did he know all this? Alien telepathy, of course. Also, he claimed he was a secret government spy who regularly hung out with the president and all sorts of high-up officials. Almost 100% certain one of his stories was a summary of the previous week's X-Files...with names changed, of course. He swore me to secrecy about all of it. I promised not to say a word. Not that I could (or would) repeat any of what he told me in sane company. Not even if I worked for a supermarket tabloid. Poor old guy. Nice dude. Just full-blown wacko! Among the more weird experiences I had as a news writer. I am SO glad I got out of that business. Being a librarian is so much more chill.
Anyway...
My only complaint is the photos and drawings are not in color. And when you're marketing something to teens (particularly something nonfiction, however interesting), making a book eye-catching as possible helps.
Also, I'd hoped to read something about the Feline Plot to Take Over the World (something my cats let slip when they thought I wasn't listening). Sadly, this was accidentally left out of the book. Or WAS it an accident? Hmmmmm.....
There needs to be another choice than "I finished." Unless there is and I haven't found it. There are several books I have started reading and decided not to finish because they were too dull, too technical, or I just didn't like them for some reason.