Download Limbo Of The Lost Written By John Wallace Spencer Released As Text

so look, Im going to tell you right up front that this is less a book review than it is a memorandum on a particular era in U.
S. popular history. Im just putting that right there out front, just in case you came here for a typical review, “Limbo of the Lost” is an awful book, light on theory, heavy on baseless speculation, Its really not much more than a repetitive recitation and regurgitation of missing plane and ship cases within what is popularly known as “The Bermuda Triangle.
” Its only on the very last page of the book that the author posits his idea that at least some of the disappearances of people and machinery are “a conclusion that they are actually being taken away from our planet for a variety of reasons.
” This after stating in a previous paragraph that he considers himself to be a “realist, ” No, John Wallace Spencers book is a complete waste of time if you are looking for anything substantial in the way of information or entertainment.


And yet.

And yet this is an important book, for no other reason that it is a true cultural artifact of the earlys in The United States of America, a reflection of a popular culture that had been overtaken by a fascination with the “occult.
” This trend was seemingly everywhere back in the day, Movies like “The Exorcist” were bringing the diabolical to the big screen, while the pulp paperback horror industry was booming, Comics were fair game for oddball themes, witness the success of Marvels “Son of Satan” and DCs “The Demon, ” Writers like Colin Wilson were working within a realm of “true” occultism, with exposés of Wicca and Satanism, ESP was big time. Kirlian photography. UFOs. Bigfoot would make his small screen debut in a battle royale with none other than the Six Million Dollar Man, and “The Legend of Boggy Creek” hit theaters with a “real” monster from my very own neck of the woods, the ArkLaTex.
This was all fertile ground for a kid like me, who was into sciencefiction and fantasy, My friends and I gobbled all of this stuff up like fevered brain candy, and that fascination with pop culture occultism has stayed with me all these years, even though I eventually adopted the viewpoint of an educated skeptic.
And, yeah, its still fun for me to collect and read this stuff even if I am something of a scientific rationalist, The beauty of science is that its flexible and open to new data, so if Randy Redneck drives up one day with a Bigfoot carcass in the back of his pickup truck, well then, science will just have to react to the new information.


Now I will firmly admit that “The Bermuda Triangle” was probably my least favorite of all of the weird news stories of the day.
There seemed to be some sort of a UFO connection, and maybe that was kind of interesting, but for the most part it seemed to be a remote and VERY speculative area of investigation for me.
There are plenty of rational explanations for why ships and planes disappear at sea, and all the stuff about energy crystals blasting energy beams from lost Atlantis didnt add to the attraction of the whole phenomenon.
Mostly it seemed kinda silly, but there were a couple of stories that held my attention,

One of those was the highly documented legend of Flightin, This famous case involved the loss of five TBMAvenger bomber planes and a Martin Mariner PBM Flying Boat that was dispatched to look for the lost flight.
All sorts of speculation continues to the present day as to what happened to this training flight, but the general consensus based on all of the available evidence is that the flight leader, one Charles Taylor, became disoriented and lost during the flight, eventually leading the squadron out over open ocean where they ran out of fuel and ditched into the sea.
The rescue flight appears to have been a victim of an explosion, as the PBM Martin Mariners were known to have fuel line issues and were basically flying bombs.
You can read more on the history of the flight on this Wiki page:

sitelink wikipedia. org/wiki/Flight

Part of what added to the mystery was several sensationalized and mostly fictionalized accounts of transmissions from Taylor that might have indicated some sort of a supernatural or extraterrestrial explanation for the loss of the mission.


Bottom line, though, The Bermuda Triangle was boffo business in pop culture in the early to mids, The unfortunate fact that “Limbo of the Lost” is a subpar example of the type of literature available to the public is kind of beside the point.
The fact is that there are TONS of examples of bad publishing that deal with occult subjects, and that is just kind of the way it is.
Publishers and editors were, and still are, quick to cash in on trends so it really cant be much of a surprise when the turkeys begin showing up on the shelves.
Serious scientists had begun jumping ship on UFOs and other supposed paranormal phenomena ever since the latter part of thes, and the vast majority of writers who were working in the field were untrained in the legitimate sciences.
There are a few notable exceptions, of course, J. Allen Hynek was still actively writing and researching, and NICAP was still attempting to do some sort of serious attempt at documentation and research in the world of UFOlogy, but most of the stuff that hit the paperback racks down at the dime store was absolute dreck.


So what the hell happened The United States had seen massive scientific and technological progress throughout the decades of thes and thes.
Maybe it was just inevitable that there would be a push back against these trends at some point, The lates saw a renaissance in more “organic” types of thinking, The expansion of the mind through transcendental meditation and hallucinogenic substances led to a sort of boom period for a wave of antiscience sentiment.
Sociologists have been struggling with these questions for decades, of course, We are today faced with a populace that distrusts science and scientists in general, even as they devour every new technology that comes along.
The number of people who dont “believe” in the Apollo moon landings is shockingly high, and dont even get me started on the “FlatEarth movement.
”

So what do I do with a book like “Limbo of the Lost” From a value perspective it adds nothing to the supposed mystery of the “Bermuda Triangle.
” Reading this as an adult leaves me no choice but to review it on content, and Id give it a less thanstar rating if I could.
That said, there is still that little part of me that read this as an enthralledyear old, and for THAT kid this book was a gateway drug to a world of mystery and excitement.
Missing ships! Missing planes!! UFOs!!! Who couldnt get excited about THAT

Modern science and statistical analysis have debunked “The Bermuda Triangle” as nothing more than a mostly contrived legend.
The section of the sea that compromises the traditional borders of the region have been proven to be no more or no less dangerous than any other areas of highly traveled water, and even Lloyds of London doesnt list it as one of themost dangerous areas of open ocean.
But the idea that there was a haunted area of the world that swallowed planes and ships leaving nothing but mystery behind sure was a fun idea while it lasted.


It really sucks to get old sometimes, . Good book. A rather dated look at the Bermuda Triangle, At the time of publication, this was one of the books that pushed the Triangle into the public mind, Supposed to be nonfiction and I'm sure there are a lot of actual facts in the book, but there's a lot of fringe stuff too.
It's basicaly the same book as "The Bermuda Triangle, " Interesting reading at the time, but not meant to be taken without a big grain of salt, Exhaustive investigation and very entertaining More hokum of my youth but easy to believe hokum when you areyears old and Sun Classics is putting movies about Bigfoot and Noah's Ark out in theaters and IN SEARCH OF is on every week, narrated by Mr.
Spock no less!

Ah, but what if all of it was true and there was some kind of phantom zone sucking in ships and planes, some timeless, dimensionless space that probably looked like that "Little Girl Lost" episode of TWILIGHT ZONE Instead, of course, getting ships and planes across vast bodies of water was always harder than anticipated, even in our technologically modernth Century, what with storms and lousy code inspections from easily bribed officials and captains waiting to scuttle ships and collect insurance money.


So here's to flips book open randomly the crew of luxury airliner "The Star Tiger" allof whom

"disappeared" on January,, Aliens Demons Dimensional Warps Atlantean death rays Deros maybe, . . but more likely they crashed into the ocean northeast of Bermuda and all died on impact or drowned, And that's terrible and awful and it is also kind of sad that they live forever because of flimsy paperbacks knocked out by cheap hacks and terribly researched, overly credulous, lazy or just dishonest television specials.
. . I found this interesting enough, but it was still just ok, The book touched on a couple different subject, but just kind of mentioned it in passing it didn't go into details, But still a fun, quick read, A little light on facts but interesting nonetheless, Quick read. For such a colorful subject a surprisingly dull book, A classic from my youth, Pure cheese. Your decision to read it should be based purely on the font of the title alone, Even by the dubious standards of Bermuda Triangle literature, Limbo of the Lost stands out for its unbearable, childish sloppiness, Spencer, a decidedly amateur writer, throws together a paperthin volume recounting a few of the bestknown Triangle disappearances the USS Cyclops, Flight, etc, in brief, affectless style that merely regurgitates other books' findings, Perhaps realizing this wasn't enough to bring his tome to book length, he pads the volume with irrelevant miscellany, like a long chapter on the Loch Ness Monster and a biographical sketch of Blackbeard.
Worst of all, Spencer embraces even easilyresolved nonmysteries like the Rubicon blown out to sea by a hurricane while its crew was ashore, VA Fogg sunk by a boiler explosion and Bill Verity an explorer who never disappeared in the first place.


Like all paranormal mysteries, the Bermuda Triangle inspired works that are fun, trashy reads provided you don't take them too seriously see Richard Winer's books The Devil's Triangle and Ghost Ships, in particular.
Limbo of the Lost can't even achieve that much, being merely a transparent and shoddy cashin that netted Spencer money before becoming a joke, doomed to haunt the shelves of secondhand bookstores for eternity.
Starts good, very well researched and fantastic data, Then, when it's about to get repetitive and monotonous, it changes gears to new topics, including pirates, how clever, That would give it abut the ending drags it down to afor me, I read this at some point during my childhood, What I remember of it still gives me shivers, even though I know it's mostly bunk, .