Book Reviews Perceptions Magazine, September 2026
THE DOGMEN
By Nomar Slevik
Bionic Bigfoot Independent Creators
2026, 64 pages, Paperback, U.S. $10.00
ISBN: 9798257800542
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
Author of some of Maine’s greatest mysteries, Nomar Slevik has pulled together in this booklet some of the most chilling and fascinating cases on record, and his primary focus once again is on his home state of Maine. It’s a genuine psychological thriller from beginning to end. The stories are comparable to the tales that the legendary Maine horror novelist Stephen King writes about, except in this case these are actual testimonials of people who claim they actually encountered these beasties like the legendary Dogman itself. These people claim that their experiences were based on fact and not fiction.
While many cryptozoologists tend to place the likes of the so-called Dogman, Bigfoot, Mothman, lake and sea monsters, and so on and so forth as cryptozoological, biological anomalies yet to be identified and classified by the academic community, some eyewitness accounts (including some presented in this book) indeed do sound like narratives created by Stephen King, and yet these matters of high strangeness can be found in a full spectrum of unexplained accounts, from ufology to angelology, demonology, elementalism, shamanism, spiritualism, etc., etc.
In one story told by a man named Danny, he described how he was raised in a family that went camping a lot. In this one instance, he and his twin brother Darren, both twelve at the time, with his mom and dad arrived at a secluded spot one midafternoon and set up their tents and gathered firewood. Immediately upon stepping out of the truck Danny felt like something was watching him, but he could see nothing. Later, after the family had an enjoyable evening barbecue they retired for the night. Then early in the morning, Danny awakened and felt something was calling to him, drawing him to the wood line about 30 yards away. His father had awakened and asked him what he was doing. Danny answered he was just going to the wood line. The father cautioned him not to go too far into the woods. Stepping a short distance into the woods a voice in his head warned “Go no further, Danny!” Then a few feet ahead of him he saw an orange-colored orb, which he watched for about 30 seconds till it disappeared. Then, suddenly in the same spot, he saw two glowing yellow eyes. Over the years, he had observed many different examples of eyeshine, but these were different. The voice louder and sounding more urgent declared, “You are in danger!” Very frightened he rushed back to camp. Out of breath he excitedly told his father what he’d seen. It was obvious his dad thought his son’s imagination had gotten the best of him.
Hours later, as the sun was setting and the family had gathered to eat, Danny again was startled by the voice which he heard saying, “Your dad should have listened to you!” Danny began crying, his dad chastising him with the words, “You need to get over this Danny.” Then suddenly the father stood up and said, “Get the kids down to the truck.” Soon they all saw what he was seeing. Three sets of glowing eyes. This time red and moving closer, all on four legs, bigger than an average wolf. Danny recalls how they were “almost transparent, kind of like shadows.” Then the beings stood up on two legs, one of them letting out what was described as a chilling, otherworldly cry, whereupon they returned back to the woods.
In another account, a man fascinated with cryptid encounters began exploring a cemetery where he came across oversized wolf-like tracks. Wanting to see a cryptid for himself he decided to try doing an incantation at the site. He gathered stones from the grounds there, placed them in a circle, then sitting in the circle he did an incantation for about 10 minutes, after which he waited to see if anything would happen. He didn’t have to wait long. Soon the wind picked up, gusting around him, eventually trapping him in a whirlwind in which he perceived the frightening appearance of a transparent man-like wolf starring at him, floating above the ground. It had glowing red eyes and the frightened man observed all sorts of strange things around him. A voice declared, “You shall suffer!” Two weeks later his pregnant wife miscarried, then his stepson drowned, his wife eventually divorced him, and he’s had trouble holding a job.
Well, I don’t want to give away any more of the high strange contents of this thought-provoking book, but at this point don’t you agree there are stories herein that share parallels with something Stephen King himself could have penned? But remember, these are described by credible seeming eyewitnesses as real encounters.
Beyond the Mirror
An Essay on the Meaning of the UFO Phenomenon
By Phillippe Solal
Postface by Yoann Lamant
Translation by Sarah Witeneim
2026, 242 pages, Paperback, U.S. $15.50
Also available in Hardcover for $17.00; Kindle $7.99
Available on Amazon
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
The author, Philippe Solal, is a French philosopher, a former professor with the National Institute of Applied Science of Toulouse, and a Doctor of History of Science.
On Amazon the author wanted us to know the following: “The French researcher Joël Mesnard rightly declared about the mystery of UFOs that ‘we only know the surface of this phenomenon.’ He thus sensed that something ‘enormous’ was hidden beneath him, like the submergence of a gigantic iceberg of which we only see a thin appearance on the surface of the water. We hope to show how right he was, without suspecting that what is hidden in the shadow of this phenomenon is even larger than a gigantic iceberg and carries within it secrets which take us far beyond the exobiological question and open us to the mysteries of faith and the production of our phenomenal reality.”
Those words came from the introduction of this book where it begins to explain how a deep penetrating examination of the UFO mystery therein is comparable to how one assembles a vast puzzle. You begin with taking the many puzzle pieces and trying to place them with great care, eventually locating their correct placements revealing in time the full image that reveals the complete picture.
The author adds an important requirement for properly assembling this particular puzzle. He warns us how many readers will likely suffer a knee jerk reaction to this essay as they will see it as an “intellectual construct tinged with mysticism and religiosity, far removed from the canons of science,” pointing out how many ufologists will also find disfavor with its contents and approach.
“The initiation to which the UFO phenomenon leads us can only have the true meaning for those who know how to listen, and who are sensitive to the symbols it transmits, beyond the decoys through which those symbols appear,” he further adds.
I’m reminded of how journalist John Keel in his UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (1970), an admitted lifelong atheist, defining himself as having been brought up in the “hard school of objective journalism,” described how he broke with mainstream ufology back in the late 1960s, after traveling through some twenty states interviewing many witnesses himself and researching much of the available literature, concluding: “My skepticism has melted away, and I have turned from science to philosophy in my search for the elusive truth.”
While their conclusions may not have followed exactly, the parallels of what they pondered and examined match in many significant areas, like the Marian apparitions often involving children, as well as school encounters like the Ariel School incident in Zimbabwe back on September 16, 1994, the many prevalent psychic and religious elements, NDE (near death experience) similarities to the contactee phenomena, the Oz Effect, altered states of consciousness that occur, screen memories, etc. There’s an awful lot to ponder and process here. Enough to keep the most dedicated truth seeking intellectual busy for a lifetime without fully comprehending the full scope of this complex enigma. At least going on to 60 years of my own personal attempts at processing it all, that’s my own conclusion.
