In 1993 The Scientist, a trade magazine for life science professionals, declared cryptozoologists an endangered species. The search for unknown animals was reportedly a pseudoscience in decline, and 30 years later, some skeptics still insist that cryptozoology is in its death throes, despite evidence to the contrary. While it’s true that no cryptozoologist has yet bagged a Bigfoot or netted a Nessie, the subject remains perennially popular.
Among the most visible forms of contemporary cryptid enthusiasm is the phenomenon of cryptid tourism, which can be visiting the sight of a famed creature sighting, taking a trip to a regional cryptid-themed festival or museum, or even more vicarious activities like watching reality TV programs about monsters, which continue to proliferate on both cable and streaming services.
With a subject so rich and varied, Sara Brooke Christian’s recently published study Cryptid Tourism: The Performance of Modern Day Monster Hunting (McFarland, 2023) feels much needed. Unfortunately, the slipshod organization of the book, combined with some problematic interpretive framing, compromises what should have been a welcomed first academic foray into this topic.
Christian has a doctorate in theater history, theory, and criticism from Louisiana State University, which makes her choice of interpretive analysis for Cryptid Tourism a little odd. She insists on continually evaluating the subject through the narrow and hard to quantify lens of belief. In chapter 1, Christian outlines what she calls the Cryptid Belief Spectrum, which resembles a stripped-down version of Richard Dawkins’ Spectrum of Theistic Probability.
According to Cryptid Tourism, there are just four categories relating to cryptid belief: Complete Believer, Skeptical Believer, Open Skeptic, and Complete Skeptic. The first thing you might notice is that three of the four categories denote some form of skepticism. It seems that for Christian, skepticism is a nuanced and varied position – ranging from total disavowal (Complete Skeptic) to Fox Mulder’s “I Want to Believe” attitude (Skeptical Believer) – while the belief in monsters is not.
In fact, the only way Christian seems to be able to conceive of believing in cryptids is by having personally encountered one (Complete Believer). This is a curious position to adopt, especially when you consider that many prominent Bigfoot hunters – John Green, René Dahinden, Grover Krantz, etc. – have never claimed to have seen a Sasquatch.
Moreover, despite having interviewed several cryptozoologists for Cryptid Tourism, Christian doesn’t appear to have asked any of them how they’d self-identify, given the choices on her chart. Rather, she insists on assigning her manufactured labels to them, including the entire cast of the reality TV show Finding Bigfoot, a review of which takes up the bulk of chapter 3.
Another peculiarity is that in chapter 6, Cryptid Tourism describes the act of encountering a cryptid in terms of existential trauma, a crisis in which one experiences a break with consensus reality. In this way, cryptid witnesses become victims whose stories should be listened to and believed, rather than callously critiqued. Christian’s preoccupation with belief naturally colors her entire analysis of the phenomenon of cryptid tourism.
Chapter 4 of Cryptid Tourism consists of a whirlwind survey of a number of cryptozoology-themed museums, including Cliff Barackman’s North American Bigfoot Center, West Virginia’s Mothman Museum, and oddly Roswell’s International UFO Museum and Research Center (but not Loren Coleman’s International Cryptozoology Museum). The chapter concludes that such places are not really museums (i.e. locations where serious cryptozoologists can come to consult archives or conduct research), but rather “hubs” for like-minded believers. And because cryptid believers are victims of trauma, these museums then become “safe spaces.”
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Christian that someone could be interested in cryptids and cryptozoology without being especially concerned about the objective reality of cryptids, or as folklorist Michael Dylan Foster argues in his 2008 book Pandemonium and Parade, that one might enjoy the ambiguity that comes from speculating about the existence of monsters while never really knowing if they exist. Notably, Foster describes the belief in cryptids as “ludic,” or intentionally playful, and it’s striking that Christian, a scholar whose background is in theater theory, doesn’t seem to have considered the possibilities inherent in analyzing cryptid tourism through the lens of ludology.
This seems like an especially missed opportunity when it comes to chapter 5’s lengthy review of the reality TV series Hellier, which follows paranormal investigators Greg and Dana Newkirk’s hunt for goblins in the small town of Hellier, Kentucky. The show premiered on YouTube in 2019 and attracted over a million viewers, leading to it subsequently being picked up by Amazon Prime for its second and (currently in production) third seasons.
Despite being billed as a reality show, several critics including Hayley Stevens, Blake Smith, and Jeb Card have noted striking similarities between Hellier’s plotlines and classic Weird Fiction stories by Arthur Machen and H.P. Lovecraft. They also note that the Newkirks themselves have acknowledged that the events depicted on screen may not be totally authentic, while dismissing the possibility as ultimately unimportant, since the answer to the alleged Hellier mystery is less significant (i.e. less fun) than the investigation itself.
Despite pronouncements by skeptical Cassandras, cryptozoology shows no signs of disappearing. In 2022, more than 25,000 visitors attended the annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and this past summer, hundreds descended upon Loch Ness for Quest Weekend. TikTok posts with the cryptid hashtag regularly rack up billions of views. Because of this, solid academic engagement with cryptozoology is needed now more than ever.
Cryptid Tourism: The Performance of Modern Day Monster Hunting is an (overly?) ambitious book sadly marred by questionable interpretations and a scattershot layout. While there are numerous interesting insights to be found littered throughout Christian’s often rambling text, finding them is akin to the frustrating process of detecting Bigfoot in a blurry photo.
AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.
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