A century of photographs of 'monsters' analysed and … debunked? Well, maybe.

The Loch Ness Monster. Bigfoot. The Yeti … all creatures of myth and mystery. And creatures where the only photos and bits of film in existence are blurry, indistinct, and always controversial.

Around 30 such pieces of evidence are in existence, for a range of these creatures known as cryptids.

In this book, renowned cryptozoologist and palaeontologist Darren Naish aims to explain what we know about these grainy photos and snatches of film, and what we think they actually show. Cryptozoological organisms? Things that look like cryptozoological organisms? Animals that we know exist that have been mis-identified? Clever hoaxes? Un-clever hoaxes? Or something different entirely?

Darren has been at the forefront of a dedicated band of writers and researchers that, over the course of many years, have compiled a substantial quantity of information on the back-stories to these photos and films. As a consequence of this, researchers now know a great deal about the circumstances, location and timing of each photo, the cameras that were used, and – often, but not always – about the photographers themselves.

Each piece of archival imagery also bears a complex story of interpretation, whereby writers and experts have disagreed and sometimes argued (sometimes spectacularly) over what exactly it depicts. For example, does the famous ‘Surgeon’s Nessie' photo of 1934 show a diving waterbird, an otter’s tail, or the head and neck of a modern-day plesiosaur? In this book, Darren looks at ‘pro-monster’ and ‘anti-monster’ interpretations, in a fair-minded and analytical way that's familiar to readers of his acclaimed blog Tetzoo.

Monsters on Film includes the largest collection of cryptozoological photographs ever published, with each accompanied by detailed explanatory text, along with further sketches and diagrams.

Read this book and let yourself believe, even if just for a moment, that wild hominins live in the woods of North America, that giant marsupials somehow cling on in Australia, or that Mesozoic sea-beasts plough the bottom of a Scottish loch, then see what the latest research can tell us about the photographic evidence for these beasts.