Loren Coleman is an American cryptozoologist who has written over 40 books on a number of topics, including the pseudoscience and subculture of cryptozoology.
Coleman writes on popular culture, animal mysteries, folklore, and cryptozoology. An editor of the Skeptical Inquirer said, "among monster hunters, Loren's one of the more reputable, but I'm not convinced that what cryptozoologists seek is actually out there." He has appeared on television and radio interviews about cryptids. He has written articles and books on cryptozoology and other Fortean topics. He was a publicity consultant on The Mothman Prophecies. Coleman has carried out fieldwork throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, regarding sightings, trace evidence, and Native peoples' traditions of Sasquatch/Windigo/Bigfoot. He has written on Yeti and Bigfoot expedition sponsor Tom Slick and appeared on NPR discussing the death of Grover Krantz. Paraview Press introduced a series of books, "Loren Coleman Presents" in 2004. Coleman wrote introductions to volumes in the series. Coleman contributed to the exhibition "Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale," shown at Bates College Museum of Art and at the H & R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute. Coleman is also a contributor/coauthor of the 2006 Bates exhibition catalogue and book, Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale. He also wrote the essay "Cryptids" for Alexis Rockman.. Academic writers Darryl Caterine and John W. Morehead criticized Coleman's assumption that a 1955 incident in which an Indiana woman was pulled underwater by something she did not see was caused by a half human, half fish creature called a "merbeing" as an example of "how cryptozoologists think about science fiction and its relationship to the natural world". Science writer Sharon A. Hill disagrees with Coleman's assertions that cryptozoology is "scientific and skeptically minded". Hill criticized Coleman's Crytomundo website, saying that members "show blatant disdain for scientists and investigators critical of their claims". In reviewing a book by Grover Krantz, Skeptical Inquirer editor Robert Boston said of Coleman and Jerome Clark's book Creatures of the Outer Edge, "Clark and Coleman are every bit as gullible as Krantz, but at least they know how to spin a monster yarn so that the reader gets an occasional chill".
International Cryptozoology Museum
Coleman established a Cryptozoology Museum in 2003 in Portland, Maine. The first downtown location for the museum opened in November 2009, occupying the rear of The Green Hand Bookshop, a Portland general used bookshop specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and other forms of Gothic fiction. On October 30, 2011, two years after moving onto Congress Street, it re-opened in a much larger space around the corner at 11 Avon Street, although it was still located in the Trelawny Building. The museum then moved again in the summer of 2016, opening in July on Thompson's Point, where it resides now.
''The Copycat Effect''
Coleman has a master's degree in psychiatric social work and was a consultant for the Maine Youth Suicide Program for nearly a decade. He authored several manuals and trained over 40,000 professionals and paraprofessionals statewide. A specific concern continues to be cases of murder-suicide among the young as well as the possibility of clusters and the influence of media coverage, leading to his writing the books Suicide Clusters and The Copycat Effect. He has been called on for statements in the aftermath of school shootings and how best to respond to the problem, mostly by the Canadian media.
