America's favorite cultural historian and author of Ghostland takes a "thought-provoking and delicoiusly unsettling" (Publisher's Weekly) tour of the country's most persistent "unexplained" phenomenaIn a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational-in fringe-is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on. It seems the more our maps of the known world get filled in, the more we crave mysterious locations full of strange creatures.Enter Colin Dickey, Cultural Historian and Tour Guide of the Weird. With the same curiosity and insight that made Ghostland a hit with readers and critics, Colin looks at what all fringe beliefs have in common, explaining that today's Illuminati is yesterday's Flat Earth: the attempt to find meaning in a world stripped of wonder. Dickey visits the wacky sites of America's wildest fringe beliefs-from the famed Mount Shasta where the ancient race (or extra-terrestrials, or possibly both, depending on who you ask) called Lemurians are said to roam, to the museum containing the last remaining "evidence" of the great Kentucky Meat Shower-investigating how these theories come about, why they take hold, and why as Americans we keep inventing and re-inventing them decade after decade. The Unidentified is Colin Dickey at his best: curious, wry, brilliant in his analysis, yet eminently readable.

Media Love for Author: Ghostland was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Shelf Awareness; one of Men's Journal's 7 Best Books of October, a Goodreads Best Book of the Month, and one of New York Magazine's 19 Great Nonfiction Books to Read Over the Summer. Along with stellar reviews, Colin appeared on NPR's All Things Considered, and was published in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Vice, Slate, The New Republic, and The American Scholar.Well Connected in the World of the Weird: Colin has great support from his friends at Caitlin Doughty's collective The Order of the Good Death, who came out in full support of his last book and has already given high praise to this latest. We expect the same support for The Unidentified.Timeless Take on a Timely Topic: With political conspiracies becoming more and more mainstream, and with a particular spike on paranoid thought in a Covid-19 world, Colin looks at the root of the impulse to latch onto fringe theories and beliefs, offering nuanced understanding.