INTRODUCTION

      Monster. It’s an emotive and ominous word that provokes a wide and varied body of responses, depending on the circumstances and the person. For little children, monsters are those terrifying things that, on bleak and stormy nights, lurk under the bed and in the shadowy recesses of the closet. They surface as their dark and warped moods take them, causing those same children to bury their heads under the sheets, praying the beasts do not take them away to their hidden lairs.

      For cryptozoologists—those people who pursue such beasts as Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, and Mothman—monsters are all too real. They are things presently unknown to science, but that give every indication of being living, breathing entities. Their abodes are not the bedrooms of children, however. No: they dwell in huge lakes, dense forests, expansive jungles, deep caves and caverns, and on vast, icy mountain ranges.

      For others who pursue terrifying beasts, the hideous things out there have supernatural—even occult—origins: we’re talking about werewolves, the “Grinning Man,” and deadly, phantom hounds, among many others.

      As you will quickly come to appreciate, monsters are not merely the things of urban legends, hoaxes, and friend-of-a-friend tales. The shocking truth is that monsters—whether physical, supernatural, or even inter-dimensional—are all too chillingly real. And there are far more than a few of them, too.

      Indeed, in the pages that follow you will quickly find yourself immersed in the worlds of giant flying monsters; winged humanoids; violent and hairy man-beasts; long-necked leviathans of lakes, rivers, and oceans; ferocious and deadly shape-shifters; and a multitude of other menacing, hideous, and dangerous things. They are creatures that scientists tell us don’t exist, that zoologists assert cannot exist, and that historians assure us are nothing more than a mixture of ancient and modern folklore and mythology. I’m here to tell you they are wrong; each and every one of them. Monsters do exist. You’re about to learn of no less than two hundred of them. Before you do so, however, ensure the doors and the windows are all locked. If it’s a dark and stormy night, keep the lights on full. You never know what might be lurking outside, in the shadows, watching you as you read about them.