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Publisher: Anova (collins & Brown)

Price: £8.99. (Paperback)

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‘An Exploration of Otherworldly Routes’ is the subhead of this interesting and original study and is recommended for those keen to learn more about ‘Haunted Highways’.

Devereux discusses the existence of ‘corpse roads’, traditional routes employed to carry the dead to burial grounds. Apparently, they criss-cross the British Isles and are of considerable antiquity: some may date from prehistoric times. These corpse roads are often believed to be haunted, even though their original use has been long forgotten. Devereux points out their similarity to prehistoric stone avenues and their supposed function as ‘spirit ways’ and suggests links with Shamanic routes of other cultures, such as the Songlines of the native Australians. Fairylore also features strongly.

Many of the UK’s corpse roads survive for exploration today – and others may be awaiting discovery by Paranormal readers with a map, a stout pair of walking boots and a quest for adventure.

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Publisher: Adventures Unlimited

Price: £15.95. (Paperback)

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UFO propulsion dynamics is the subject of this astonishing 584-page tome. How do ‘flying saucers’ manoeuvre? How do they hover? What powers them? These are the sorts of questions Potter believes he has answered successfully.

Potter presents no biography for himself, so we cannot say whether he has any academic qualifications or professional background in the highly technical fields he has chosen to explore – electromagnetics, gravitational physics, aerodynamics and the like. But with an impressive bibliography, references and chapter headings like ‘Magnetic Flux Break-Reconnection Ionization’, it’s hard not to fall under Potter’s spell.

Then there are the lavish technical diagrams, many in full colour and rather beautiful with their swirling ‘polarized fluids’ and ‘gyrating rejected electrons’.

Magnificent breakthrough or magnificent folly? Alas, we are not qualified to say – but Mr Potter deserves our respect either way.

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Publisher: Stackpole Books

Price: £6.99 (Paperback)

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Stackpole are doing for the United States what several British publishers have been doing for the UK – providing a series of handy regional ghost guides, in this case state by state.

The author of Haunted Texas is a professor of English whose lively but informative style does justice to his subject. The Lone Star State is about twice the size of the UK, so there’s plenty of material and Brown gives them suitably juicy headlines: ‘The Black Hope Horror’, ‘The Bloody Secret in Room 636’, ‘Crazy Man’s Tower’, ‘Woman Hollering Creek’.

The Alamo, of course, is haunted and there’s something undeniably Texan about a herd of phantom cattle (at the aptly named Stampede Mesa). But Haunted Texas features more than just ghosts: UFO landings, banshees, Bigfoot-type monsters (‘covered in white-gray fur and scales [and] the head of a goat’) and the Chupacabra also make an appearance in this entertaining collection.

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Publisher: Gothic Image

Price: £12.99 (Paperback)

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John Michell is a pioneer in evoking the mystical spirit of the British landscape, so was the perfect choice to compile this handy illustrated guidebook, which is packed with pages but designed so that it will slip into an overcoat pocket.

Christian and pre-Christian sites are treated with equal enthusiasm by the author. If a place engages a visitor spiritually, then Michell considers it sacred. Stone circles and burial mounds are therefore included alongside little parish churches, grand abbeys and holy wells.

Synagogues, mosques and modern temples rarely make an appearance in Sacred England, however, but this may be because of their lack of age, and therefore importance in the spiritual landscape as perceived by Michell.

The entry on each location includes descriptions, reasons for its inclusion (including any myths and legends attached to it) and useful instructions to make sure you find it in the first place.

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Publisher: Anomalist Books

Price: £9.50 (Paperback)

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Demon lovers have been a feature of folklore since the Middle Ages at least but such phenomena are still reported today.

Steiger turns his considerable resources onto the subject of sex and the supernatural in this welcome reprint of Haunted Lovers first published in 1971 but now rather hard to obtain. The author examines a broad spectrum of phenomena, from ghostly lovers and jealous spirits that torment former lovers to more outré subjects like ‘Sexual Molesters from the Spirit World’, ‘Otherworldly Lovers from UFOs’ and ‘Invisible Demons that Possess and Destroy’.

Sex and romance are powerful forces in the human psyche, so it’s no wonder that they should have a strong influence on supernatural experience. Many of the accounts in Steiger’s fascinating book are doubtless the result of psychosis or wish fulfillment but many more provide unnervingly convincing evidence of beings from beyond who are keen to get closer than comfortable.

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Publisher: Anomalist Books

Price: £8.50 (Paperback)

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The idea of an ancient civilization, one pre-dating known archaeology, has long gripped the imagination. Some like to believe fabled Atlantis was the cradle of civilisation, others imagine a supercontinent, Mu, where people thrived at the dawn of time. Then there are the fantasies of H. P. Lovecraft, in which impossibly old extraterrestrial beings colonised an Earth inhabited by dinosaurs.

Steiger’s book delves into the dim and distant past to examine evidence damned by archaeological and paleontological orthodoxy. Could Homo sapiens have existed on the Earth far longer than currently believed? Could a non-human race have lived and created a civilisation millennia before the earliest apemen, when mankind was just a twinkle in God’s eye?

The suggestion is not as fantastical as it might first appear. A fascinating article in a recent edition of Focus magazine considered how long it would take for traces of our civilisation to vanish from the Earth should we be wiped out by a natural disaster. According to author Stephen Baxter, it would take just 100,000 years for every city to have weathered down to dust. Times that figure by two and you realise that there are still millions of years in which a race of intelligent beings could have thrived yet virtually all trace of them to now be lost.

When Worlds Before Our Own was first published in 1978 it was met with fury in some quarters for daring to question established thought on the origins of humankind. It has long been out of print, since when its reputation has grown and grown and influenced many other writers who have found popular acclaim (eg Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods).

In this welcome reprint, Steiger provides a new introduction in which he wryly points out that some of the ideas he expressed have since become scientific truths: whereas opinion in 1978 held that apes and humans split from a common ancestor six million years ago,  recent discoveries have pushed that date back to more than twenty million years ago.

Steiger explores a considerable body of evidence, including mysterious ‘man-made’ artefacts found deep in the fossil record before the dawn of Man, and sophisticated machines way ahead of the technological know-how believed possible at the time they date from. He does not intend this evidence to be conclusive, merely to raise the question about our origins and to fire the imagination regarding the possibility of a millions of years-old lost civilisation. He succeeds admirably on both counts.

Author: J. J. Lumsden

Publisher: Bennion Kearny

Price: £10.99 (Paperback)

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This page isn’t intending to review works of fiction as a rule, but since J J Lumsden seems to have come up with a concept which ‘fills a new literary space’, we’ll make an exception.

The Hidden Whisper is a mystery story centring round alleged poltergeist activity that breaks out in a couple’s home in Arizona. The author’s credentials could scarcely be better for the subject: he’s an experimental parapsychologist, based in the UK, with a PhD from the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh. 

As well as weaving an intriguing and well-written novel around paranormal events, Lumsden also provides about 20,000 words of non-fiction endnotes which go into the subject of the poltergeist phenomenon in more depth. Authenticity is clearly the author’s watchword.

An appealing blend of science and detective story, The Hidden Whisper is described as the ‘Sophie’s World of parapsychology’. 

Author: Paul Screeton

Publisher: Heart of Albion

Price: £14.95 (Paperback)

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Folklorist Paul Screeton has been gathering what we now call urban myths since long before the term was coined.

Mars Bar & Mushy Peas is named after two persistent yarns: the spurious chocolate bar unfairly thrust on (as it were) Marianne Faithfull and the pot of a Northern delicacy Peter Mandelson allegedly mistook for avocado dip.

In a series of knowledgeable and witty essays, Screeton focuses on the cult of celebrity and the way stories are built up around them. He also discusses fake folklore to benefit tourism; the clash between Forteans and folklorists; the ‘barmy belief’ (his words) of global warming; and the entertaining subject of ‘penis lore’.

Familiarity with contemporary folklore can be a helpful guide when handling reports of paranormal activity: you learn to spot suspicious trends and too often repeated details. But Screeton’s book isn’t just useful: the roster of celebrity tall tales will keep you chuckling.

Author: Geoff Holder

Publisher: Tempus

Price: £12.99  (Paperback)

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One of the most accessible and beautiful islands off the west coast of Scotland, it is no surprise to discover that Arran is also one of the most enigmatic. This guide to a mysterious corner of Scotland is a much more satisfying production than Milne’s: packed with photographs and boasting a handy bibliography and useful index. It is one of an ongoing series by Tempus.

Holder has done a superb job of plumbing the depths of Arran’s mysteries. He divides the island into sections and presents for each a dense body of detailed accounts of antiquities, legends, folklore, paranormal phenomena – and the just plain quirky.

The quality of his research is outstanding and his enthusiasm for his varied subjects shines out on every page, whether he’s discussing a stone circle, a fairy legend, an old shipwreck or a headless ghost.

On many occasions over the years, I have considered visiting Arran – now I feel I must. 

Author: Graeme Milne

Publisher: Cauliay Publishing

Price: £8.99 (paperback)

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I approve of the current cottage industry of local ghost books. Written by enthusiasts in the field, as it were, they always contain first-hand accounts of experiences that wouldn’t otherwise have found their way into print. There’s always something new to be found.

Contrary to its title, Milne’s book fits into this category, for ‘the North’ here refers only to the North-East of Scotland and its regional capital of Aberdeen. Milne has taken considerable trouble in tracking down stories, visiting locations and compiling first-hand accounts of ghosts and other phenomena such as alleged time slips.

Although the book is a rather amateurish production – it could have done with a more careful proofreader and page numbers on the contents page are mysteriously absent – the contents are what count and you’ll find a varied selection of unfamiliar accounts to interest you, my favourite being the invisible animal that was apparently released from a locked attic.