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Ivan T. Sanderson
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Ivan Terence Sanderson (January 30, 1911 – February 19, 1973) was a naturalist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Sanderson is remembered for his nature writing and his interest in cryptozoology and paranormal subjects.
in Scotland, Sanderson traveled widely in his youth. His father, who manufactured whisky professionally, was killed by a rhinoceros while assisting a documentary film crew in Kenya in 1924.
As a teenager, Sanderson attended Eton College, and, at 17 years old, began a yearlong trip around the world, focusing mostly on Asia.
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Encyclopedia
Ivan Terence Sanderson (January 30, 1911 – February 19, 1973) was a naturalist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Sanderson is remembered for his nature writing and his interest in cryptozoology and paranormal subjects.
Biography
Born in Scotland, Sanderson traveled widely in his youth. His father, who manufactured whisky professionally, was killed by a rhinoceros while assisting a documentary film crew in Kenya in 1924.
As a teenager, Sanderson attended Eton College, and, at 17 years old, began a yearlong trip around the world, focusing mostly on Asia. Sanderson earned a B.A. in zoology, with honors, from Cambridge University, where he later earned M.A. degrees in botany and geology.
He became famous as the most credible witness to see a Kongamato, after being attacked by a creature he described as "the Granddaddy of all bats". This encounter occurred when he had shot a fruit bat that toppled into the water. He went to retrieve his catch but was warned by his partner to duck. He described the following events:
"Then I let out a shout also and instantly bobbed down under the water, because, coming straight at me only a few feet above the water was a black thing the size of an eagle. I had only a glimpse of its face, yet that was quite sufficient, for its lower jaw hung open and bore a semicircle of pointed white teeth set about their own width apart from each other. When I emerged, it was gone. ... And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling back down the river, its teeth chattering, the air "shss-shssing" as it was cleft by the great, black, dracula-like wings."
Sanderson conducted a number of expeditions as a teenager and young man into tropical areas in the 1920s and 1930s, gaining fame for his animal collecting as well as his popular writings on nature and travel.
During World War II, Sanderson worked for British Naval Intelligence, then for British Security Coordination, finally finishing out the war as a press agent in New York City. Afterwards, Sanderson made New York his home and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In the 1960's Sanderson made his home in Warren Country in rural northwestern New Jersey, where he owned considerable land. He later lived in apartment #516 in the Whitby building on West 45th Street in Manhattan's Hells Kitchen until his death in 1973.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Sanderson was widely published in such journals of popular adventure as True, Sports Afield, and Argosy, as well as in the 1940s in general-interest publications such as the Saturday Evening Post. In the 1950s, Sanderson was a frequent guest on John Nebel's paranormal-themed radio program. He was a frequent guest on The Garry Moore Show, being one of the first recognized animal researchers on television to bring live specimens on talk shows. As his friend and fellow cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has remembered in several of Coleman's books, Sanderson's appearances often involved his discussion of cryptozoological topics. Coleman notes that Sanderson could be skeptical. In "Mysterious America," for example, Coleman documents that Sanderson discovered the 1909 "Jersey Devil" incident was an elaborate real estate hoax.
Sanderson was an early follower of Charles Fort. Later he became known for writings on topics such as cryptozoology, a word Sanderson coined in the early 1940s, with special attention to the evidence for lake monsters, sea serpents, Mokèlé-mbèmbé, giant penguins, Yeti, and Sasquatch.
Sanderson founded the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU) in 1965 near Columbia, New Jersey.
Personal
Sanderson was married twice. His wife Alma accompanied him in the travels discussed in Caribbean Treasure and Living Treasure.
He died of brain cancer in New Jersey, which had become his adopted home.
Nature writing
Sanderson published three classics of nature writing: Animal Treasure, a report of an expedition to the jungles of then-British West Africa; Caribbean Treasure, an account of an expedition to Trinidad, Haiti, and Dutch Guyana (now Suriname), begun in late 1936 and ending in late 1938; and Living Treasure, an account of an expedition to Jamaica, British Honduras (now Belize) and the Yucatan.
Illustrated with Sanderson's drawings, they are well-written and humorous accounts of his scientific expeditions, and anticipate later works by writer-naturalists such as Gerald Durrell. Unlike Durrell, who collected animals for zoos, Sanderson collected animals for museums and scientific institutions, and included detailed studies of their behaviors and environments. He also killed some for study. Sanderson's behavioral observations in the animals' natural environments were invaluable: much of what was known at that time concerning "exotic" species was based solely upon the examination of dead and preserved specimens.
Works
Nature/travel
- Green silence: Travels through the jungles of the Orient, D. McKay Co., 1974, ISBN 0-679-50487-7.
- Animal Treasure, The Viking Press, September 1937, hardback; Pyramid Books, July 1966, paperback.
- Ivan Sanderson's Book of Great Jungles, Julian Messner, 1965, hardback.
- Caribbean Treasure, The Viking Press, November 1939, hardback, ISBN 0-670-20479-X; Pyramid Books, November 1965, paperback, second printing July 1966.
- Living Treasure, The Viking Press, April 1941, hardback, second printing April 1945; Pyramid Books, September 1965, paperback.
- The Dynasty of Abu a History and Natural History of the elephants and Their Relatives Past and Present, Alfred A. Knopf, 1962, hardback.
- Living mammals of the world in color: A treasury of real-life, natural-color photographs and complete up-to-date, accurate description of 189 mammals, Hanover House, 1958.
- Follow the Whale, Little Brown, 1956, hardback.
- How to Know the American Mammals, Little, Brown and Company, 1951, hardback.
Paranormal subjects
- Things and More Things (essays), combined and reprinted by Adventures Unlimited Press, 2007, paperback, ISBN 1-931882-78-9
- Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life: The Story Of Sub-Humans On Five Continents From The Early Ice Age Until Today, Adventures Unlimited Press, 2006, paperback, ISBN 1-931882-58-4.
- Invisible Residents: The Reality of Underwater UFOs, with David Hatcher Childress, Adventures Unlimited Press, 2005, paperback, ISBN 1-931882-20-7.
- Vimana Aircraft of Ancient India and Atlantis, with David Hatcher Childress, Adventures Unlimited Press, 1992, paperback, ISBN 0-932813-12-7.
- Investigating the Unexplained (essays) Prentice Hall, 1972, hardback, ISBN 0-13-502229-0.
- More Things (essays), Pyramid Books, 1969, paperback.
- Uninvited Visitors: A Biologist Looks At UFOs, Cowles Education Corporation, 1967, hardback.
- Things (essays), Pyramid Books, 1967, paperback.
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