WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK the entire team at Columbia University Press who partnered with us on Abominable Science!: Patrick Fitzgerald, science publisher; Irene Pavitt, senior manuscript editor; Bridget Flannery-McCoy, associate editor; Jennifer Jerome, director of production and design; Vin Dang, designer; Derek Warker, publicist; and Brad Hebel, director of sales and marketing. Our deep appreciation goes to all these professionals for helping us realize our dreams for this book.
We thank Benjamin Radford, Blake Smith, Adrienne Mayor, Darren Naish, Karen Stollznow, and Sharon Hill for their reviews of the manuscript and their many helpful corrections and suggestions. Ben Radford’s help in securing some of the images is much appreciated.
We thank our wives, Cheryl Hebert and Teresa LeVelle Prothero, for their love and unwavering support during the long writing process. And we thank our children (including Erik, Zachary, and Gabriel Prothero). We hope that they will inherit a world somewhat less ignorant and anti-scientific than the one in which we grew up.
Also deserving of special mention are Michael Shermer and Pat Linse of the educational, nonprofit Skeptics Society. We thank them for their guidance, encouragement, and open-minded devotion to the spirit of scientific inquiry. A tip of the hat as well to
Skeptic’s creative team, including Webmaster William Bull and illustrator Jim W. W. Smith. (Some of Jim’s work appears in this book, to its very great benefit.)
Daniel Loxton wishes as well to thank his cryptozoological counterparts John Kirk, Loren Coleman, Paul LeBlond, and Ed Bousfield for their collegiality and for their generosity in sharing sources and information.
Many people provided eyestrain and patience in hunting down key sources for this research. Special mention must be made of James Loxton’s many days of scrolling through microfilm, as well as Jason Loxton, Patrick Fisher, Stefan Bourrier, Jennifer Griffith, Greg Carr, and Colin Walsh for contributions to our research. Hans-Dieter Sues, Doug Henning, Kristjan Wager, and Matthew Kowalyk are warmly thanked for important translations. Barbara Drescher is thanked for her expert assistance on the topic of the psychology of paranormal belief. Our thanks as well to Tony Harmsworth, Charles Paxton, Peter Gillman, Michael Fredericks, Donald Glut, David Goldman, Janet Bord, Max Crowther, Stephen Cosgrove, and many others for providing or helping us to secure important images and resources for our research or for reproduction or both.
Thanks are due to Lesley Kennes and Gavin Hanke at the Royal British Columbia Museum (and Jim Cosgrove, now retired) for fielding questions and providing valuable access. The RBCM has stood in the middle of cryptid central for decades and has weathered it with good humor and just the right attitude of accessibility, outreach, and public service. Similarly, we thank Edwina Burridge, Norman Newton, and Susan Skelton of the Inverness Reference Library; Caroline Cameron, Catriona Parsons, and the Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia; and Leslie K. Overstreet and Kirsten van der Veen at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
Thank you, everyone.