A Strange Highway Indeed

A few days ago Loren Coleman posted an update concerning the health of his younger brother, Jerry Dale Coleman. Jerry has been battling cancer for some time and, after an all too brief remission, it has come back. I can only imagine what Loren and the rest of the Coleman family are going through right now. I know this news hit me hard, but I know it also hit the many, many friends and fans Jerry has garnered through his intelligent, thoughtful, and kind interactions with us through personal correspondences and various cryptozoology and paranormal message boards.

Before I knew Jerry, I became great friends with Loren whom I truly appreciate. I met Jerry a few years after meeting and becoming friends with Loren. Jerry e-mailed me with some very kind comments about my books and we stayed in contact since then. I say “met”, but unfortunately I never had the privilege of meeting Jerry face to face. From personal experience I do know Jerry to be a gracious and selfless person with a great sense of humor.

Jerry is also a researcher of cryptozoological and paranormal phenomena, having spent years doing actual field research. His tireless efforts culminated in two books: Strange Highways and later More Strange Highways. These are great books filled with fascinating information. A couple of years ago Jerry kindly asked me if I would write a forward for a third book he was preparing for publication, Strangest Highways. I was very flattered and moved, as I consider Jerry a wonderful friend and I was eager to participate. Circumstances ultimately prevented Jerry from going forward with the book, which is unfortunate for those of us who are Jerry’s dedicated fans. I know it would have been an amazing work. Nevertheless, I am posting that forward here as I submitted it to Jerry.

By the way, if you would like to see what Jerry looks like, just grab a dictionary and look up the word FRIEND. You’ll find his picture there.

Jerry D. Coleman Knows…

A few years ago there was a tendency among artists who re-construct prehistoric fauna through sculpture and illustration to create reproductions of sauropod dinosaurs (Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, et al) with their nostrils on the tips of their snouts. Some may ask, why is that a big deal? Well, the reality is sauropods did not have nostrils on the tips of their snouts, but between their eyes. What was happening was those artists were interpreting their subjects based upon the previous works of other artists, rather than going to the original source of their subject matter.

The reason I point this out here is because something similar has been going on among cryptozoological and paranormal researchers. You can find dozens of books on cryptozoology and paranormal phenomena written by people who have chronicled literally centuries of text, sometimes reaching as far back as Biblical times. In fact, interest in these subjects has grown substantially over the past several years that older texts, long out of print, are becoming available again. Many of these books are highly beneficial, as well as an asset to any cryptozoological or paranormal library. However, many of them also suffer from that same tendency as the above-mentioned artists: the information gathered within their pages has been gleaned from the research of previous editions written by individuals who, far too often, got their information through second and even third-hand research. Before long, something as simple as an alleged Bigfoot sighting becomes a story of Bigfoot commanding an armada of alien spacecraft and leading his telepathic kinsmen to turn our homes into their own personal poop barns! This has become something of a problem, especially since the advent of the internet, which has helped fuel the accusations of debunkers (I do not lump skeptics in with debunkers, as the former display an open-mindedness and a willingness to examine available evidence, whereas the latter make no such consideration), that most of what has been written about is all the product of mistaken identity, overactive imaginations, or outright hoaxes and lies.

In October of 2003 Whitechapel Productions Press published a book titled Strange Highways, and was the culmination of more than forty years of researching bizarre phenomena and animal anomalies encountered by all manner of people across the American nation by Jerry D. Coleman. Jerry Coleman is that all-too-rare researcher and writer who has traveled this country on his own time and at his own expense to separate fact from fanciful fiction. While the end sometimes results in a commonplace explanation (although many more do not), one still comes away with a satisfied sense of closure without disappointment. In January of 2006, Jerry and Whitechapel published More Strange Highways, which continued this exciting, if unsettling journey, opening eyes and minds, and was equally well-received as Strange Highways.

And now we have Strangest Highways. This is not a mere “re-hash” of Strange Highways and More Strange Highways combined to make an attractive compendium, but rather a final summation of Jerry’s more than forty years in the field. It is his ultimate declaration, a final say on what he knows to be true based upon his own personal experiences looking for ghosts, phantom road trolls, strange canids, feline specters, out-size predatory birds, and, of course, that cryptozoological enigma who refuses to be ignored—Bigfoot.

I am a writer of fiction. I write a series of adventure novels about a character who is a cryptozoologist under the banner of “The Kodiak Books”. These books chronicle the journeys of George Kodiak, explorer and researcher, as he delves into the world of hominid anomalies, lake monsters and various prehistoric survivors. As such, serious research is as important to me for the mental picture I want to paint for my readers as is putting the sauropod’s nostrils between its eyes. I rely heavily upon the works and wisdom of people like Jerry Coleman because I can trust their research and experiences come from dedicated and heart-felt commitment to providing all the evidence.

Jerry D. Coleman is the real thing.

So get ready—we are going on a trek along America’s Strange Highways where all you are going to need is an open mind and a sense of wonder.

-Lee Murphy