Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman, MSW, is an author of books on wide-ranging topics including sociology and cryptozoology.

Coleman was educated in anthropology and zoology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and psychiatric social work at the Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston. He did post-masters work in anthropology at Brandeis University and studied sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Coleman taught at New England universities from 1980 to 2004, also having been a senior researcher at the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Policy from 1983 to 1996, before retiring from teaching to write, lecture, and consult on his many interests.

The "copycat effect"
Loren Coleman is an international consultant on the "copycat effect" through his university research, books, and media consultations during the last three decades. Coleman first began working in the mental health field in 1967, and was later a senior researcher at the Muskie School of Public Policy from 1983 through 1996. Concurrently, Coleman was an adjunct associate/assistant professor at the University of Southern Maine, teaching a popular course on the social impact of documentary films year-round from 1990-2003, and producing eleven award-winning documentaries. He has worked with Hollywood talent, such as L. A. Law star Richard Dysart and Stephen King's Graveyard Shift's Minor Rootes. Additionally, Coleman has taught courses in seven other New England universities since 1980.

As an author, he wrote two books focused on the behavior contagion of school shootings and related suicide events: Suicide Clusters (Faber and Faber, 1987) and The Copycat Effect (Simon and Schuster, 2004). Suicide Clusters was a Psychotherapy and Social Science Book Club selection, and Coleman appeared on many programs, including "The Larry King Show" discussing it. His work on the suicides of baseball players, specifically Angels pitcher Donnie Moore, was covered in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and The Sporting News, plus on television programs such as ESPN¹s SportsCenter (in 1989) and ESPN Classics (in 2001). Regarding The Copycat Effect, he has appeared on Coast to Coast AM, National Public Radio, NBC-TV, CBC-TV, and other media forums discussing celebrity suicides, Heaven¹s Gate, Waco, the Hemingway Curse, Columbine, as well as Montreal's Dawson College and other 2006 school shootings in Vermont, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Coleman has privately trained and consulted across the USA and Canada to universities, public schools, law enforcement agencies, and mental health organizations on suicide clusters and school violence since the 1980s. As a consultant for the State of Maine, for example, he has been involved in training 11,000 professionals and paraprofessionals since 1997.

Cryptozoology
Coleman also is internationally recognized for his research and writings on animal mysteries, folklore, and new species, known as the science of cryptozoology. He appears frequently on television]] and radio in interviews about Bigfoot, Yeti, Lake monsters, Mothman, the Dover Demon, Orang Mawas, and other cryptids. He has written numerous articles and books on cryptozoology and other Fortean topics, of which the first was published in 1969. He has many professional interests, as well, including a subspeciality in media analysis. His 2004 book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines (ISBN 0-7434-8223-9) followed in the wake of his earlier academic publications and book, Suicide Clusters (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987).

Some of his frequent radio and TV appearances are on the "Documentary Channels", such as the Discovery Channel and its satellite channels, such as the Learning Channel, Jeff Rense's radio show, the Coast To Coast AM radio show, the History Channel. The subject matter presented when he is on these are about Bigfoot and related cryptids.

Coleman, due to his extensive research on the series of West Virginia sightings of Mothman, was asked by Sony/Screen Gems before the release of their 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies, to assist them with their reality-based publicity. He therefore was involved in press conferences, and over three hundred radio interviews discussing the factual background to the 1966-1967 events in Point Pleasant, West Virginia that informed Mark Pellington's contemporary motion picture. The studio also had Coleman and author John Keel appear in their documentary, Search for the Mothman (2002), directed by David Grabias. In conjunction with the movie and documentary, the studio encouraged Coleman to complete his book on Mothman before the release of their movie, and thus Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (ISBN 1-931044-34-1) was published in 2002 by New York's Paraview Press. He continues this work through a study of the so-called "Mothman Curse".

Despite Coleman's Mothman research, his long-term interests within the cryptid realm are Yeti and Sasquatch investigations. He has carried out extensive fieldwork throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, regarding sightings, trace evidence, and Native peoples' traditions of Sasquatch/Windigo/Bigfoot. Many of his recent books have dealt with Bigfoot, Yeti, Lake Monsters, and Sea Serpents. His writings are collections of raw data, theories, and his adventures traveling around North America. His investigations, through others' news reports, as well as his own articles and books frequently reflect words and phrases that have passed into routine use in cryptozoology. For example, he coined Dover Demon as well as other cryptids' specific names.

Coleman is also a biographer and obituary writer, having written on Yeti and Bigfoot expedition sponsor Tom Slick and appearing, for example, on NPR discussing the death of Grover Krantz.

Coleman has won awards for this documentary and literary work, and in 2004, he was honored with being depicted as the comic book character "Coleman Wadsworth" chasing an Abominable Snowman and in turn being chased by the title creature in the Swamp Thing comics.

Paraview Press introduced a new series of books, "Loren Coleman Presents," with Mark A. Hall's book, Thunderbirds: America's Living Legends of Giant Birds (ISBN 1-931044-97-X) in 2004.