Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman, MSW, is an author of books on wide-ranging topics including sociology and cryptozoology.

Coleman was educated in anthropology and zoology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and psychiatric social work at the Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston. He did post-masters work in anthropology at Brandeis University and studied sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Coleman taught at New England universities from 1980 to 2004, also having been a senior researcher at the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Policy from 1983 to 1996, before retiring from teaching to write, lecture, and consult on his many interests.

Copycat effect

Coleman is an international consultant on the "copycat effect" through his university research, books, and media consultations during the last three decades. Coleman first began working in the mental health field in 1967, and was later a senior researcher at the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Policy from 1983 through 1996. Concurrently, Coleman was an adjunct associate/assistant professor at the University of Southern Maine, teaching a popular course on the social impact of documentary films year-round from 1990–2003, and producing eleven award-winning documentaries. He has worked with Hollywood talent, such as "L. A. Law" star Richard Dysart and Stephen King's "Graveyard Shift's" Minor Rootes. Additionally, Coleman taught courses at seven other New England universities from 1980 through 2004.

He has written several books in the social sciences, including two books specifically focused on the behavior contagion of school shootings and related suicide events: "Suicide Clusters" (Faber and Faber, 1987) and "The Copycat Effect" (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8223-9). "Suicide Clusters" was a Psychotherapy and Social Science Book Club selection, and Coleman appeared on many programs, including "The Larry King Show" discussing it. His work on the suicides of baseball players, specifically Angels pitcher Donnie Moore, was covered in "The New York Times", "Sports Illustrated", and "The Sporting News", plus on television programs such as ESPN¹s "SportsCenter" (in 1989) and "ESPN Classics" (in 2001). Regarding "The Copycat Effect", he has appeared on Coast to Coast AM, National Public Radio, NBC-TV, CBC-TV, and other media forums discussing celebrity suicides, Heaven's Gate, Waco, the Hemingway Curse, Columbine, as well as Montreal's Dawson College and other 2006 school shootings in Vermont, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. [ [http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2006/10/montreal-gazette-on-copycats.html Montreal Gazette on Copycats] ] [ [http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2006/10/fbi-believe-copycat-effect.html FBI Believe Copycat Effect] ]

Coleman has privately trained and consulted across the USA and Canada to universities, public schools, law enforcement agencies, and mental health organizations on youth suicide, suicide clusters, workplace rampages, and school violence since the 1980s. As a consultant for the State of Maine, for example, he was involved in the suicide prevention training and consultations of nearly 10,000 professionals and paraprofessionals from 1997 through 2007, when he left that position.

During the fall of 2006, Coleman predicted the wave of school violence in North America (e.g. Wisconsin, Colorado and Amish killings) that would happen in the wake of the Dawson College shootings. He was featured on CBC and CTV media broadcasts throughout Canada about the copycat effect. He also pointed out that the shooters appeared to be "competing with each other for a higher body count." [ [http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2006/10/ctv-on-predictions.html CTV on Predictions] ]

During April 2007, Loren Coleman was interviewed extensively by the media (e.g. NPR, CBS, Bloomberg News, many radio programs and newspapers) on the tragic events involved in Virginia Tech shooting. Several indicators are that the incident was a copycat of the Columbine High School massacre and the Dawson College shooting. [ [http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2007/04/columbine-va-tech.html Columbine & VA Tech] ] [ [http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2007/04/va-tech-shooting.html VA Tech Shooting] ]

Cryptozoology

Loren Coleman is also internationally recognized for his research and writings on popular culture, animal mysteries, folklore, and fantastical species, known as the study of cryptozoology. He appears frequently on television and the radio in interviews about Bigfoot, Yeti, Skunk apes, Panthera atrox, Loch Ness Monster, Lake monsters, Mothman, Dover Demon, Orang Mawas, and other cryptids. He has written numerous articles and books on cryptozoology and other Fortean topics, of which the first was published in 1969.

Some of his frequent radio and TV appearances are on the "Documentary Channels", such as the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel (TLC), Jeff Rense's radio show, The Paracast podcast, the "Coast to Coast AM" radio show, the History Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel, the Travel Channel, Japanese television, as well as the mainstream American broadcast channels. The subject matter presented when he is on these are most often about Bigfoot, Nessie, Mothman, Dover Demon, and related cryptids and cryptozoology. He is often asked to speak on college campus, for example giving the keynote lecture on cryptozoology at the opening of the "Cryptozoology" exhibition at Bates College in 2005 and at the American Museum of Natural History in 2007, during their exhibition, "Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids"."

Coleman, due to his extensive research on the series of West Virginia sightings of Mothman, was asked by Sony/Screen Gems before the release of their 2002 movie "The Mothman Prophecies", to assist them with their reality-based publicity. He therefore was involved in press conferences, and over three hundred radio interviews discussing the factual background to the 1966–1967 events in Point Pleasant, West Virginia that informed Mark Pellington's contemporary motion picture. The studio also had Coleman and author John Keel appear in their documentary, "Search for the Mothman" (2002), directed by David Grabias. In conjunction with the movie and documentary, the studio encouraged Coleman to complete his book on Mothman before the release of their movie, and thus "Mothman and Other Curious Encounters" (ISBN 1-931044-34-1) was published in 2002 by New York's Paraview Press. He continues this work through a study on his website of the so-called "Mothman Curse".

Despite Coleman's Mothman research, his long-term interests within the cryptid realm are Yeti and Sasquatch investigations. He has carried out extensive fieldwork throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, regarding sightings, trace evidence, and Native peoples' traditions of Sasquatch/Windigo/Bigfoot. Many of his recent books have dealt with Bigfoot, Yeti, Lake Monsters, and Sea Serpents. His writings are collections of raw data, theories, and his adventures traveling around North America. His investigations, through others' news reports, as well as his own articles and books frequently reflect words and phrases that have passed into routine use in cryptozoology. For example, he coined Dover Demon, Phantom Panthers, as well as other cryptids' specific names.

Coleman is also a biographer and obituary writer, having written on Yeti and Bigfoot expedition sponsor Tom Slick and appearing, for example, on NPR discussing the death of Grover Krantz.

Coleman has won awards for this documentary and literary work.

In 2004 he was referenced as the comic book character "Coleman Wadsworth" chasing an Abominable Snowman and in turn being chased by the title creature in the "Swamp Thing" comics (#7 and #8). [ [http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/comic-life My Comic Life] , from his Cryptomundo blog] Using Coleman as the model, he also inspired other recent comic book “cryptozoologist” characters, as well, by the artists Hunt Emerson, Charles Berlin, Peter Loh, Allan Gross and Jerry Carr.

Paraview Press introduced a new series of books, "Loren Coleman Presents", with Mark A. Hall's book, "Thunderbirds: America's Living Legends of Giant Birds" (ISBN 1-931044-97-X) in 2004. In 2007, A. C. Oudemans’ "The Great Sea Serpent" and Philip Henry Gosse's "The Natural History of Animals" appeared in this series, introduced by Coleman.

During 2005–2006, Coleman was the national spokesperson and judge for a “Creature Photo Contest,” being conducted by Wizards of the Coast's role-playing Duel Masters cards division.

Coleman saw the appearance of several of his coauthored works in 2006, including new editions of "The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates" and "The Unidentified and Creatures of the Outer Edge", plus a new book, "Weird Ohio".

During 2007, new books by Coleman published have been "Mysterious America" (ISBN-10: 1416527362;ISBN-13: 978-1416527367) from Simon and Schuster, and "Weird Virginia" from Barnes and Noble.

International Cryptozoology Museum

Coleman established his International Cryptozoology Museum in 2003, as his home office, and he continues to receive media and research guests by appointment, in Portland, Maine.

As a museum exhibitor, Coleman contributed the room of nonfiction artifacts and objects, as a reflection of his own collection, to the exhibition “Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale,” shown at Bates College Museum of Art (June 24 - October 8, 2006) and at the H & R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute (October 28 - December 20, 2006). He delivered the keynote address, “An Introduction to Cryptozoology,” at the symposium at Bates College in October 2005, as beginning the lead-in to the formal exhibition. A similar talk was given at the American Museum of Natural History in 2007.

Coleman is also a contributor/coauthor to the 2006 Bates exhibition catalogue and book, Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale (JRP/Ringier Books, Switzerland, 2006). Coleman, furthermore, wrote the essay “Cryptids” for the massive art tome, Alexis Rockman (Monacelli Press, 2005).

On October 6, 2007, and in the following days, the International Cryptozoology Museum received extensive news coverage, with photographs, through the Lewiston, Maine, "Sun Journal", Boing Boing, and Cryptomundo. [http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/08/inside-loren-coleman.html] [http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/icm-images/] [http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/weird-museum/] [http://www.sunjournal.com/story/232974-3/MaineNews/A_man_and_his_weird_museum/" "A man and his (weird) museum"] by Kathryn Skelton, Staff Writer, Lewiston, Maine, "Sun Journal", Saturday, October 6, 2007.

On June 26, 2008, Coleman blogged that he and the International Cryptozoology Museum, per advice from the IRS, to support the ongoing educational and research purposes of the museum, as a form of revenue to fund the museum, within his career as a cryptozoologist, was conducting a donation drive. [ [http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/help-museum/ Cryptomundo - Save the Museum] ]

Bibliography

Loren Coleman has written over 30 books, including the following recent selections:
*"The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates" (NY: Anomalist Books, 2006, ISBN 1-933665-1-22)
*"The Unidentified & Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman" (NY: Anomalist Books, 2006, ISBN 1-933665-11-4)
*"Weird Ohio" with James Willis and Andrew Henderson (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2005, ISBN 1-4027-3382-8)
*"The Copycat Effect" (New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8223-9)
*"The Copycat Effect" (New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004) [http://www.copycateffect.com/]
*"The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep" with Patrick Huyghe (NY: Tarcher-Penguin, 2003, ISBN 1-58542-252-5)
*"BIGFOOT!: The True Story of Apes in America" (NY: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0-7434-6975-5)
*"Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology" (Fresno: Craven Street/Linden Press, 2002, ISBN 0-941936-74-0)
*"Mothman and Other Curious Encounters" (NY: Paraview, 2002, ISBN 1-931044-34-1)
*"Mysterious America: The Revised Edition" (NY: Paraview, 2001, ISBN 1-931044-05-8) Also in 2004, a hardbound edition of "Mysterious America" was published (ISBN 1-931044-84-8).
*"Cryptozoology A to Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature" with Jerome Clark (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1999, ISBN 0-684-85602-6)
*"The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide" with Patrick Huyghe (NY: HarperCollins, 1999, ISBN 0-380-80263-5)

References

External links

* [http://www.lorencoleman.com Coleman's personal website]
* [http://www.copycateffect.com Coleman's "The Copycat Effect" website]
* [http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/ Cryptomundo.com - CryptoZoo News, Loren Coleman's official blog]
* [http://www.coasttocoastam.com www.coasttocoastam] - Loren Coleman is a regular on "Coast to Coast AM".
*imdb name|id=0171129|name=Loren Coleman