Describes sacred, haunted, and mysterious sites in the United States and Canada, including power points, earthworks and mounds, stoneworks of unknown origin, and places where ghost lights, phantom ships, mysterious creatures, and monsters have been sighted

A fully illustrated, one-of-a-kind guide to the unexplained rocks, ruins, and phenomena of eastern North America.

*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Canada has the reputation of being a boring place. More tranquil than its southern neighbor, it goes along in its quiet way sustaining one of the most stable and prosperous democracies in the world, and does so with little fuss or drama. It doesn't get in the news much, which considering the content of most news stories is a good thing. People get along, the economy is expanding, and there are no regular disasters. While all this makes Canada a pleasant place to live, it does not make it particularly interesting. But dig a little below the surface, and you'll find a different Canada, a stranger Canada, one of murder, mystery, and paranormal experiences. The stories that follow will show that Canada, far from being a dull, staid nation where nothing much happens, is an epicenter of the mysterious. At a time in antiquity when most of Europe was covered with forests and wandering tribes, Mexico had already developed complex civilizations, beginning with the Olmecs and followed by the Maya, a civilization with advanced knowledge of medicine, engineering and astronomy. The Maya calculated the precession of the equinoxes and cycles of the Pleiades, on which they based their year, since they believed they had come from that constellation. The last, and perhaps most famous, great civilization before the arrival of the Europeans was the Aztecs. With so many ancient peoples whose influence, beliefs, and modifications to the landscape extend to the present day, Mexico is fertile land for legends, ghosts, surprising places, and mysteries. A belief in communing with things that lie beyond (stars, constellations, and life after death), mysticism, and apparitions are intimately woven into the colorful fabric of the Mexican nation, to the point that a metaphysical event (the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe) is considered by many as one of the founding elements of the nation. Our Lady of Guadalupe has an eerie counterpart, another woman who appeared around the same time: La Llorona, the weeping woman. If the content of the former vision is loving and conciliatory, the latter is full of regret and agony. As for the United States, the Northeast has always had a special place in the national memory. The states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York have a long history as some of the earliest colonies in the New World. Their rich folklore and colorful history is woven into the national identity, and destinations such as Plymouth Rock, the lighthouses of Maine, and Vermont's autumn leaves are quintessential symbols of the United States. But the Northeast has always had a dark side, a strange side. Monsters and ghosts lurk in its woods and old houses, and strange monuments that may be from a forgotten civilization puzzle local investigators. All the while, the early inhabitants themselves were always superstitious, as evidenced by history's most famous witch trials. Today the Salem Witch Trials are often remembered as being a relic of a superstitious past, and Salem has transformed itself into a tourist haven and Halloween destination by capitalizing off the Salem Witch trials, but it was deadly serious in 1692, when 19 men and women found themselves taken to "Gallows Hill" and hanged for being witches. Another man who was over 80 years old was pressed to death for refusing to be tried for witchcraft, and from February 1692-May 1693, hundreds of others were accused of witchcraft. Dozens of them were imprisoned for months until the mass hysteria finally died down. Mysterious North America: Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena across the United States, Mexico, and Canada offers a vast compendium of strange, unexplained, and just plain odd stories across North America's various regions.

Bestselling author and noted cryptozoologist Loren Coleman set out on the ultimate mission: to uncover the fun and intriguing phenomena that exist right here in the United States. In Mysterious America, a fun and compulsively readable guidebook to America's most popular local legends, he prepares readers for their own adventure -- where to find the unbelievable spectacles on their journey, including: Phantom panthers haunting eastern North America Bay State ghosts and spirits Mad gassers in Illinois Champ, the famous Lake Champlain monster The Minnesota Iceman The Missouri Momo and the infamous Eastern Bigfoot And many more! Coleman's witty insight and astonishing experiences will captivate followers of Charles Fort and just-plain-curious readers alike. For, as Coleman frankly reveals, these strange creatures and unimaginable wonders may lie just beyond your own backyard....

Starting new discoveries in regard to pre-Columbian trade links with Indigenous American civilizations. Detailed maps show how ancient Romans, Celts, Vikings and others used the North American waterways as their direct highways to trade with the Moundbuilder and copper mining cultures amongst others long before Columbus arrived in the Americas.

J. M. Adovasio has spent the last thirty years at the center of one of our most fiery scientific debates: Who were the first humans in the Americas, and how and when did they get there? At its heart, The First Americans is the story of the revolution in thinking that Adovasio and his fellow archaeologists have brought about, and the firestorm it has ignited. As he writes, “The work of lifetimes has been put at risk, reputations have been damaged, an astounding amount of silliness and even profound stupidity has been taken as serious thought, and always lurking in the background of all the argumentation and gnashing of tenets has been the question of whether the field of archaeology can ever be pursued as a science.”

Star Mounds is a full-color illustrated study of the precolonial monuments of the greater Ohio Valley, woven together with over fifty "medicine stories" inspired by Native American mythology that demonstrate the depth of the knowledge held by indigenous peoples about the universe they lived in. The earthworks of the region have long mystified and intrigued scholars, archeologists, and anthropologists with their impressive size and design. The landscape practices of pioneer families destroyed much of them in the 1700s, but, during the first half of the 1800s, some serious mapmaking expeditions were able to record their locations. Utilizing many nineteenth-century maps as a base—including those of the gentlemen explorers Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis—author Ross Hamilton reveals the meaning and purpose of these antique monuments. Together with these maps, Hamilton applies new theories and geometrical formulas to the earthworks to demonstrate that the Ohio Valley was the setting of a manitou system, an interactive organization of specially shaped villages that was home to a sophisticated society of architects and astronomers. The author retells over fifty ancient stories based on Native American myth such as "The One-Eyed Man" and "The Story of How Mischief Became Hare" that clearly indicate how knowledgeable the valley's inhabitants were about the constellations and the movement of the stars. Finally, Hamilton relates the spiritual culture of the valley's early inhabitants to a kind of golden age of humanity when people lived in harmony with the Earth and Sky, and looks forward to a time when our own culture can foster a similar "spiritual technology" and life-giving relationship with nature.