Author Denver Michaels

George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938) spent decades recording the histories, legends, and cultural practices of the Plains Indians. According to a Pawnee narrative recounted to Grinnell, the first people to inhabit the earth were giants. These mighty men of old were so powerful that they hunted buffalo on foot. The giant buffalo hunters ran fast enough to catch buffalo and were strong enough to kill them with only clubs and flint knives. So powerful were these giants, and of such enormous stature, that they carried slain buffalo upon their shoulders. These giant buffalo hunters of the Plains were also arrogant and haughty, and they refused to honor their creator, Tirawa. The giants believed themselves to be invincible; as time went on, they grew in their arrogance and their behavior became completely unacceptable to their creator.  Like so many other deities spanning a myriad of unrelated cultures, Tirawa also decided to rid the earth of the arrogant giant buffalo hunters. He turned the gr

Books about Bigfoot are a dime a dozen. I certainly have read my share over the years and I have a stack in my "to read" pile. Some Bigfoot books are great, some are terrible, and then there are plenty of so-so books. Having read a couple that fall into the mediocre category recently, I decided to reread a classic. So, I downloaded an e-book version of Ivan Sanderson’s Abominable Snowmen, Legend Come to Life. While reading the other night, something Sanderson wrote grabbed my attention—the idea that Bigfoot creatures are more human than animal. ABSMs In his book, Sanderson lumped Bigfoot into an overarching category called Abominable Snowmen or ABSM for short. Everyone knows ABSMs are elusive. Sanderson hinted at why: It is simply that ABSMs are Hominids or, just as every benighted native has always asserted, human rather than animal, and thus are endowed in one degree or another with human attributes, and most notably their powers of survival, their adaptability, their to

Virginia was arguably the most important Confederate state. It was the most populous with over 1.5 million residents. Virginia was also the wealthiest state, thanks in large part to its industrial base. Virginia was the industrial hub of the Confederacy and it equaled the output of all other Confederate states combined. Being the northernmost Confederate state, and a state of such importance to the South’s war effort, the majority of the Civil War was fought on Virginia soil. The Civil War Sites Advisory Commission classified 384 Civil War engagements as “principal battles.” Of those battles, 123 occurred in Virginia. Tennessee comes in a distant second with 38 principal battles. Some of the most fierce fighting in Virginia occurred in the Shenandoah Valley. For this reason, the valley attracts history buffs from far and wide who visit the battlefields scattered throughout the region. The Breadbasket of the Confederacy Favorable growing conditions made the Shenandoah Valley vital to th

In my RV travels across the nation, I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the shores of Lake Erie. Lake Erie is the twelfth largest lake on Earth and the primary source of drinking water for over 11 million people. The lake spans almost 10,000 square miles and holds six quadrillion gallons of water. For someone like me that has an interest in the weird and unexplained, some of the towns along Lake Erie are perfect for a visit. There are ancient burial mounds and tales of giants, lake monsters, haunted buildings , Bigfoot sightings and more. Monroe Monster In early autumn 2021, I stayed in a Michigan state park on the outskirts of the town of Monroe. Immediately, I began thinking of the “Monroe Monster.” The Monroe Monster made a name for itself in the summer of 1965 after locals began spotting the creature. The monster made headlines nationwide after it attacked a teenage girl named Christine Van Acker while she sat in a car with her mother. According to a report in the Independent (Lon

The pages of the Bible speak of entire races of giants. Among them, are the Anakims, the Rephaims, the Emims, the Zamzummims, and the Amorites. Who were these large-statured folks? The Reverend Finis Jennings Dake (1902–1987), who penned the Dake Annotated Reference Bible , the first widely-distributed study bible from a Pentecostal perspective, said this about giants in his work: The Anakims were a great and tall people (Deut. 1:28; Deut. 2:10-11,21; Deut. 9:2; Joshua 11:21-22; Joshua 14:12-14). Anak himself was a giant (Numbers 13:33). If all Anakims were as big, we can be assured other giants were also. The land of Ammon was “a land of giants,” for “giants dwelt therein in old time” (Deut. 2:19-20). The Emims were also “great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims” (Deut. 2:10-11). The same was said of the Zamzummims who formerly inhabited the land of Ammon (Deut. 2:19-21). Rephaims Dake said the following concerning the Rephaims: A “valley of the giants” is mentioned in Joshua 15:8

The Evening Herald , a newspaper from Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, reported an encounter in which a lake monster  attacked a boat with four men inside in their June 22, 1893, issue. The incident occurred in Cedar Bass Lake outside of Knox, Indiana. The article is titled "Lake Monster Smashes Boat, Men Thrown Overboard" and is reprinted below:

There is a gravity hill, called "Spook Hill" just outside of Burkittsville, Maryland. If the name sounds familiar, you might remember it from the 1999 cult-classic, The Blair Witch Project . Unfortunately for Blair Witch enthusiasts, most of the movie was filmed about 25 miles away and the recognizable landmarks in the movie are not located in town or the area nearby. Local legend holds that the spirits of disembodied Confederate soldiers haunt the area. It is these spirits—thinking they are pushing artillery uphill into position—that will push your car up the gravity hill. For this to take place: bring your car to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill; put the vehicle in neutral; your car will then begin to move uphill and gain speed the further up the hill you go. I have personally reached speeds of 7–10 miles per hour.  As a side note, be very careful if you are in the area and attempt this. For a two-lane country road, there is more traffic than you might expect. O

There have long been wild rumors of a powerful, advanced underworld kingdom. Much of the literature on the topic indicates this mysterious civilization is headquartered somewhere beneath central Asia led by the "King of the World." A leading proponent of this idea was Dr. Ferdinand Ossendowski, a Polish explorer who wrote of this kingdom—dubbing it the “Mystery of Mysteries”—in his 1923 book  Beasts, Men and Gods.   He wrote: On my journey into Central Asia I came to know for the first time about “the Mystery of Mysteries,” which I can call by no other name…The old people on the shore of the River Amyl related to me an ancient legend to the effect that a certain Mongolian tribe in their escape from the demands of Jenghiz Khan hid themselves in a subterranean country. Afterwards a Soyot from near the Lake of Nogan Kul showed me the smoking gate that serves as the entrance to the “Kingdom of Agharti.” Through this gate a hunter formerly entered into the Kingdom and, after his

I spent a weekend in Calvert County, Maryland recently. I have been there many times and find it to be a fascinating area. I am especially drawn to the Calvert Cliffs which hold vast deposits of fossilized fauna from the Miocene epoch (about 23–5 million years ago). Well, that and Chessie, the Chesapeake Bay Monster. But more on Chessie later. Let's talk fossils first.  Calvert Cliffs Fossils According to the website fossilguy.com: The fossil bearing Calvert Cliffs of Maryland is part of a large collection of fossiliferous exposures, called the Chesapeake Group. The Chesapeake Group encompasses exposures around the Chesapeake Bay, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. These exposures were created by sediment accumulation in the Salisbury Embayment, an area encompassing the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia coastal plains which is often covered by the ocean (Kent, 1994, p.111).  The Calvert Cliffs run for roughly 24 miles from near Chesapeake Beach to Drum Point on the western shore of t

Few who visit the vacation hub of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, realize that there is an old Indian mound alongside the busy highway. The mound , known as the McMahan Mound, gets lost among the sprawling strip malls and hotels. The McMahan Mound sits on the bank of the west fork of the Little Pigeon River in downtown Sevierville, Tennessee. In my travels to various mound sites throughout the country, one commonality is that mounds are always situated near a good water source. This was a necessity so that the builders could wet the earth and firmly pack it down. According to a Wikipedia entry, the McMahan Indian Mound: …consists of a 16 feet (5 m) high and 240 feet (73 m) wide platform mound, with a large associated village surrounded by a palisade. It was occupied by Dallas Phase peoples of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture between 1200 and 1500 CE. At the time when the ancient mound was first investigated scientifically in 1881 by a party associated with the Smithsonian Instit

From the earliest days of European exploration in South America, reports of strange, dinosaur-like creatures have emerged. One of the most intriguing reports of dinosaurs in South America comes from Bolivia. The following account was published in the  Scientific American  in 1883. The article is titled, “A Bolivian Saurian,” and some think it lends credence to the idea of living dinosaurs . The Brazilian Minister at La Paz, Bolivia, has remitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Rio photographs of drawings of an extraordinary saurian killed on the Beni after receiving thirty-six balls. By order of the President of Bolivia the dried body, which had been preserved in Asuncion, was sent to La Paz. It is twelve meters long from snout to point of the tail, which latter is flattened. Besides the anterior head, it has, four meters behind, two small but completely formed heads rising from the back. All three have much resemblance to the head of a dog. The legs are short, and end in f

Christopher Columbus gets the credit for discovering the New World, but it was another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512) that proved the Americas were a large and separate land mass—not the outer fringes of Asia. The Americas, as they came to be known, were named after Amerigo Vespucci. During Vespucci’s second voyage, he landed on an island that would become known as the Isla de los Gigantes, or Island of the Giants . Vespucci recorded the following in his letters: …We found that this other island was inhabited by very tall people . We landed to see whether there was any fresh water, and not thinking it was inhabited, as we had not seen anyone, we came upon very large footprints in the sand, as we were walking along the beach. We judged that if the other measurements were in proportion to those of their feet, they must be very tall. Going in search, we came into a road which led inland. There were nine of us. Judging that there could not be many inhabitants, as the island was sma

In his 1896 book Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, Charles M. Skinner recorded a number of strange tales from across the nation. One of those stories came to mind while I was camped at the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in South Dakota. As the sun set, I admired the badlands landscape, and thought of Skinner's story titled “The Banshee of the Bad Lands.” The story tells of a ghostly woman that haunts a butte in the badlands and she is sometimes accompanied by a skeleton that enjoys music. I have reprinted the classic story of the Badlands Banshee in its entirety below: ""Hell, with the fires out,” is what the Bad Lands of Dakota have been called. The fearless Western nomenclature fits the place. It is an ancient sea-bottom, with its clay strata worn by frost and flood into forms like pagodas, pyramids, and terraced cities. Labyrinthine canons wind among these fantastic peaks, which are brilliant in color, but bleak, savage, and oppressive. Game courses over the cast

The audio version of my latest travel book just went live. My buddy  @uncleperry  narrated the book and did an excellent job, I know you'll be impressed with his work. You can find the audio version of Detours Into the Paranormal: Big Bend on Amazon by clicking here. Or go directly to Audible. If you want a free promo code, go to the contact area of this site and send me an email. This is a description of the book from Amazon: Did ancient astronauts visit Big Bend? Are the Chisos Mountains haunted by the spirits of a vanished and forgotten people? Is Bigfoot lurking in the shadows of the Davis Mountains? What are the Marfa Mystery Lights? Is a pterosaur hiding in a cave in Mexico? Is a six-foot-tall bipedal lizard roaming the Chihuahuan Desert? Were Zoroastrians—practitioners of an ancient Iranian religion—living in West Texas more than 1,000 years before Christopher Columbus set sail? In this installment of his Detours Into the Paranormal series, author Denver Michaels heads

A lady contacted me a few years ago and shared her skunk ape sighting with me. The encounter occurred in 2014 in a county park in Florida. The following is her account with some personal information edited out: "I'm rather nervous to do this. I never thought I'd tell anyone but one close friend... "...I often sought the solitude of the local wildlife park to unwind. My favorite walk was to a bivouac camp. It's only marked number three on their maps. "My son had camped there before and had warned me that wild boar frequented the area. He'd claimed to have found a wallow on his last trip out. When I reached the campsite I knew I made a bad mistake. I could smell the boar. It was horrendous. Then something moved in the palmettos ahead of me. And it stood up. And up. Now mind you this is like 1 pm. Not dark out. No rain clouds. "I am bad at estimating distance so bear with me. I was driving a Grand Marquis. This thing was about three car l