Author Denver Michaels

My latest book,  California (Lucid!) Dreaming: Water Dragons, Lemurians, Bigfoot and More  is now available for  preorder on Amazon . Full-time traveler Denver Michaels navigates torrential rains in Santa Barbara, the blazing sun in Blythe, mudslides along the Pacific Coast Highway, swollen creeks in Yosemite, knee-deep snow in Lake Tahoe and other obstacles while seeking out water monsters, giants, megaliths, Bigfoot and other mysteries in the Golden State. In the eighth installment of his popular Detours Into the Paranormal series, Michaels investigates the Winchester Mystery House, rumors of ancient nuclear war in Death Valley, sky gods over the Colorado Desert, Bigfoot sightings beneath the giant redwoods, thunderbird reports, lucid dreams, strange stone walls, the Lemurian civilization and much more. What will he uncover in his never-ending search for truth? Over 80 photographs chronicle this epic seven-month tour.

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 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 ...

I began thinking about the old tales of the Utah Lake Monster while traveling through the Salt Lake City area in May 2021 . Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake to the north are both remnants of ancient Lake Bonneville. Lake Bonneville was formed roughly 32,000 years ago and lasted until about 14,000 years ago. According to Wikipedia: Lake Bonneville was the largest Late Pleistocene paleolake in the Great Basin of western North America. The Western Interior Seaway preceded Lake Bonneville. Lake Bonneville was a pluvial lake that formed in response to an increase in precipitation and a decrease in evaporation as a result of cooler temperatures. Lake Bonneville covered much of what is now western Utah and at its highest level extended into present-day Idaho and Nevada. Many other hydrographically closed basins in the Great Basin contained expanded lakes during the Late Pleistocene, including Lake Lahontan in northwestern Nevada. Utah Lake is shallow with the maximum depth of its waters on...

The Venetian merchant, explorer, and author Marco Polo (1254–1324) traveled the world and recorded many strange things he encountered along the way in his writings. This includes cryptid encounters. Maybe the most notable strange encounter that Polo had in his travels occurred in Asia when he saw the Great Serpents of Karazan. The enormous snakes were ten paces, or 25 feet in length and 10 spans, or 7.5 feet in girth. Did Polo witness some sort of prehistoric creature that had survived into his day? Especially in light of  the Chinese legends of dragons , this thought may be worthy of consideration.  Dragon legends exist not only in Asia, but all over the world. Could the Marco Polo dragons have been some sort of dinosaur that had survived extinction? Hard evidence is lacking, but there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence to draw from. Consider this strange creature resembling a dinosaur that is found at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century—not lo...

When I arrived in Moodus, Connecticut in early-May 2022, I was surprised when a friend texted me an article from the New England Historical Society. The piece was titled “The Mysterious Moodus Noises of Connecticut,” and recounted the history of strange, unexplained noises that occur around the village of Moodus. The Moodus Noises I read the article at once. I couldn't believe that I had stumbled upon a place renowned for strange activity. According to the article: The Wangunk Indians had told the colonists of the fearful noises that they tried to appease. In fact, the Indians called the land around Mt. Tom “Machemoodus,” meaning place of bad noises. The settlers shortened the name to Moodus, now a village in East Haddam. Once Puritans moved to the area in the early-1700s, they heard the noises, too. And they, too, attributed the sounds to a supernatural source. The superstitious Puritans believed God was angry with them for their sins. Meanwhile, the local Indians believed the...

Devils Lake is North Dakota’s largest natural body of water and it is the second largest lake in the state behind Lake Sakakawea. Devils Lake is an endoheric lake, meaning it has no outlet, and its waters are brackish. Devils Lake is home to legends of a lake monster . For hundreds of years, stretching back to the days before European arrival on the plains, tales of a monster have persisted along the lake, though modern-day sightings of the Devils Lake Monster are lacking. Perhaps for good cause; during the 1940s, the lake had dried to a point that it could barely sustain fish populations. The local newspaper for the town of Devils Lake ran a piece on July 10, 1908. The story told of a horned serpent-like creature in Devils Lake that made strange noises in the evening: There is truly some horrible monster animal inhabiting Devils Lake. It was seen Thursday evening just as the sun was going down and those enjoying the cool breezes from the lake that evening were thrown into a fit and r...

I visited the small town of Van Meter, Iowa in early-September 2022. On the surface, Van Meter is a typical Midwestern small town—exactly what comes to mind when thinking of Iowa. But there is more to the town than meets the eye. Over a century ago, a strange bat-like creature nicknamed the Van Meter Visitor came to town and terrorized residents for several nights. As the story goes, in the fall of 1903, the Van Meter Visitor emerged from a mine shaft and flew into town at night. The monster stood around nine feet tall and had large, leathery wings, and emitted a foul odor. Frightened residents fired bullets at the creature, but amazingly, gunfire did not harm it. But the weirdest thing of all was that the strange, winged visitor had a horn atop its head that cast a beam of light. The Van Meter Visitor came into town for several nights, flying around and perching itself atop the buildings. Fed-up townsfolk formed an armed mob and made their way to nearby mine where the monster was hol...

The wife and I spent a few days in West Des Moines, Iowa during the summer of 2022. We stayed in a nice and quiet state park that lies on the banks of the Raccoon River. While we were in the area, we spent a day touring the covered bridges nearby. One of those bridges, the Roseman Bridge, is allegedly haunted. Bridges of Madison County The Madison County, Iowa Chamber of Commerce promotes the covered bridges in the area which lie along the Covered Bridges Scenic Byway: The Covered Bridges Scenic Byway offers visitors a journey into iconic America. Dotting the classic Iowa landscape are the famed covered bridges of Madison County, immortalized in the novel, movie and musical, The Bridges of Madison County . At the county’s center is an authentic and thriving historic town square. Tour the birthplace of legendary actor John Wayne and the only museum in the world dedicated to The Duke. Or explore the Iowa Quilt Museum and quilt shops in the town where Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting...