Announcing... CryptoScat Press!

I'm proud to announce the launch of my own publishing imprint, CryptoScat Press! The first volume released under the esteemed CryptoScat Press banner is a brand new edition of my Rondo Award-nominated novel, DEAD MONKEY RUM, which has been praised by the likes of writer/magician Alan Moore, filmmaker Irek Dobrowolski, painter Robert Williams, graphic novelist Jim Woodring, film scholar Gary D. Rhodes, and cryptozoologist Loren Coleman! The ripple effects of this novel's initial publication back in 2023 have been pleasantly unexpected. For example, I was proud to discover recently that DEAD MONKEY RUM has been taught in English classes at the university level. Equally encouraging were the positive reviews for the novel featured in such diverse publications as FORTEAN TIMES and EXOTICA MODERNE, both of which I read on a regular basis. Cryptoscatology correspondents sometimes sent me photos of the book found in the wild (see below)... 

 

Alan Moore's enthusiastic response to this modest epic was heartening, to say the least. And DEAD MONKEY RUM'S nomination for a Rondo Award in the category of "Best Classic Monster Fiction" alongside the likes of such luminaries as Tim Lucas and Craig Russell represented the Rondo-Hatton-sized cherry on top of the rum cake. Alas, regardless of this attention, the novel has been unavailable for the past year or so due to mysterious circumstances beyond my control. 

 

Despite the sinister and conspiratorial efforts of the half-human Yetinsyny to keep this novel out of your hands, the terrible truth about the Sons of the Yeti refuses to be suppressed! To prevent the imminent destruction of the human race, you must buy a copy of this new edition of DEAD MONKEY RUM... today!!!

A mixture of urban fantasy and Los Angeles noir, DEAD MONKEY RUM revolves around a stolen Tiki idol that contains the ashes of visionary artist Stanislaw Szukalski. Our heroes, an alcoholic monkey named Robert Mclintlock and a beautiful bartender named Stephanie Waterfall, must locate the missing statue in the wilds of Los Angeles before a tribe of pissed-off Yetis can get their massive, dirty paws on it. Because the obsidian idol possesses magical properties, the cryptozoological beasts intend to use it to kickstart the destruction of the entire human race.

DEAD MONKEY RUM is an alcohol-fueled voyage through the heart of Los Angeles. This tumultuous odyssey amidst the Tiki bars, illicit casinos, exclusive hotels, trains, buses, and hidden tunnels and grottoes that lay beneath the City of Angels propels our hero, Robert McLintock (who just so happens to be a wiseacre simian conman from a small island called Koshima located off the coast of Japan), from his comfort zone in Orange County, into the violent byways of Hollywood, and far beyond Southern California to the Rano Rarako volcanic crater on the remotest island in the world, Rana Nui, also known as Easter Island, where our heroes ultimately engage in a final, fierce, knockout battle with an army of homicidal Abominable Snowmen for the control of Planet Earth.

Here's your first glimpse at the proof copy of DEAD MONKEY RUM, which arrived here at the highly fortified Cryptoscatology Compound only a couple of days ago. Please take a good long look at this fabulous Tiki-centric cover created by artist extraordinaire, Joseph Dunn:

 

PRAISE FOR DEAD MONKEY RUM:

"A remarkable rush of entertainment and thrills."

--Alan Moore (V for Vendetta and Watchmen) 

 

"Robert Guffey's fantastic novel, DEAD MONKEY RUM, will at least bring your brain out of a coma, if not get your imagination off the couch. This is a thinly masked tribute/adventure to the late Stanislaw Szukalski and his boundless imagination. This book is a mental gymnasium."

-- Robert Williams (Visual Addiction, Hysteria in Remission, and Through Prehensile Eyes)

 

"A fantastically rich and entertaining piece of work with an original sharp edge."

 -- Jim Woodring (writer/artist of Weathercraft, The Frank Book, and One Beautiful Spring Day)

 

"Stanislaw Szukalski would love DEAD MONKEY RUM. This novel is addictive like a heavy drug. Make space in your calendar to read it all."

-- Irek Dobrowolski (director of the Netflix documentary, Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski)

 

 "Yetis, Tiki Gods, Cryptozoology, and rum-filled adventure! Sign me up and tell me when the ship sails! I'm recommending this Robert Guffey novel to all my friends, family, and foes to take their minds completely off whatever they are thinking about. Wonderful."

-- Loren Coleman (Mysterious America, The Field Guide to Lake Monsters and Sea Serpents, The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Curious Encounters, and 40 other books - Director of the International Cryptozoology Museum)

"The wild ride of wild rides... this may be Guffey's best novel, which is saying a lot. The humor is as strange as it is dark as it is priceless."

-- Gary D. Rhodes (The Perils of Moviegoing in America, Tod Browning's Dracula, and Weirdumentary)

 
"DEAD MONKEY RUM succeeds at being a pursuit thriller, with suspense and tension as the monkey and Stephanie evade their cryptid enemies, and comedy as the two exchange jabs at each other. It is cinematically fast. DEAD MONKEY RUM should be adapted to a [...] Ralph Bakshiesque animated film where both the zaniness of the narrative and the latent satire would really flourish."

-- Exotica Moderne

 

"One of the weirdest romps you'll ever read."

-- Fortean Times

 

Coincidentally, it turns out that this is an auspicious time for the relaunch of this particular novel, as DEAD MONKEY RUM has been spotlighted in the latest issue of MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY (Issue No. 14) published by Robert "Bob" Deis. Entitled "Popsquatch!: A Crash-course on Where the Pop Cultural Bigfoot Has Gone in the 21st Century," Stephen R. Bissette's incisive article explores the most important cryptozoological fiction released in our current century (yes, including the Zermatism-inspired DEAD MONKEY RUM). I highly recommend this issue, which is overflowing with fascinating, Bigfoot-themed articles by such writers as Loren Coleman, Keith Roysdon, MAQ Co-Editor Bill Cunningham, the aforementioned Steve Bissette, and the late Ivan T. Sanderson!

Rest assured, future volumes in the CryptoScat Press series will be announced very soon! 

Jon Rappoport on "Christian End Times Groups Rooting for Armageddon"

In my previous CryptoPost, I included a link to Harlan Ellison's May 1987 radio interview with investigative journalist Jon Rappoport, who recently passed away at the age of 88. Ellison's interview focused on Rappoport's April 1987 LA WEEKLY article about the efforts of extreme right-wing evangelicals to program Armageddon in the Middle East. Though I heard this interview when it first aired, I had never seen Rappoport's original article until yesterday when Tom Kudla (Rappoport's Editorial Steward) published the entire text on Rappoport's Substack page. Entitled "The Christian End Times Groups in the US Who Were Rooting for Armageddon" (Part 2), the post includes Rappoport's article as well as multiple images from the LA WEEKLY. Though the specific names of the politicians have changed, far too many aspects of Rappoport's piece (entitled "TV Evangelism’s Bottom Line") are disturbingly relevant in 2026. 

Here's a brief excerpt from Rappoport's article:

"Because these people believe in the literality of the Old Testament—that the Jews are, in fact, God’s chosen people—support of Israel is of unquestionable importance. A familiar saying goes, 'To support God’s chosen is to gain God’s favor; turn away from the Chosen and God will turn away from you.' But more important, the timetable of Bible prophecy places the formation of the Jewish state of Israel as the major event, signifying the world’s readiness for Armageddon. When the scattered tribes of Hebrews are brought back together, then the scene will be set for the greatest confrontation of all time—God vs. Satan, nuclear style. And the longed-for prophecy of Armageddon (read, the return of Jesus) will have been realized.

"'You have to understand that the mindset of religious fundamentalists in this country is that peace is impossible to attain,' says Will Whittle, author of the book How To Stop Believing in War [...]. The heightening of tensions in the Middle East is an intentional strategy of the American religious right. Several fundamentalist leaders close to the White House are currently raising funds to destroy Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock (the world’s most sacred Moslem shrine) and replace it with the Third Jewish Temple—an act sure to incite a holy war. When asked if he would feel remorse if such a war broke out, James De Loach (pastor of Houston’s Second Baptist Church, who recently raised $50,000 to defend a group of Israelis who tried to blow up the Dome) replied, 'No, [it would be] God’s will.'

"Indeed, America’s religious right sees religion as a military campaign waged by the greatest general of all time, Jesus Christ. It’s no wonder that the military mind is fascinated by the evangelical position, no wonder that the Pentagon and the intelligence services are replete with born-agains."

If you want to check out Rappoport's 1987 article, then click HERE.

Jon Rappoport, R.I.P. (1938-2026)

Writer Jon Rappoport passed away on July 8, 2026 at the age of 88. Rappoport published several books including THE SECRET BEHIND SECRET SOCIETIES, OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING: THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH, U.S. GOVERNMENT MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN, AIDS INC., THE OWNERSHIP OF ALL LIFE, VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE, MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR: MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA, and several others. 

One of my favorite Rappoport books is VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE. Sadly, very few people have had the opportunity to see this work. Back in 2013, Rappoport released a limited edition chapbook of VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE, an exhilarating epic poem that took him fifteen years to complete. When the poem was originally published, I wrote, "VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE deserves to be ranked alongside Pablo Neruda's legendary THE HEIGHTS OF MACCHU PICCHU. It is a rare and beautiful paradox that only a true magician could succeed in conjuring forth. It dissects the old, tired myths--political myths, religious myths, social myths--that threaten to swallow our minds while simultaneously creating new myths with which the human race might lift itself up out of spiritual darkness." 

I highly recommend THE SECRET BEHIND SECRET SOCIETIES, a peculiar mixture of memoir and journalism. I gravitated toward this hybrid form of literature when I first encountered the book upon its initial publication in 1998, as my favorite writing has always been that which combines many different forms into one. THE SECRET BEHIND SECRET SOCIETIES might be one of the most intriguing memoirs I've ever read. 

 

I first heard Rappoport, completely by chance, on an episode of MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25 radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles when I was fifteen. Rappoport was talking at length about Grace Halsell's excellent nonfiction book, PROPHECY & POLITICS: THE SECRET ALLIANCE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE U.S. CHRISTIAN RIGHT. As a result, I went out and bought Halsell's book from the late, lamented EITHER/OR BOOKSTORE in Hermosa Beach and read it cover to cover. From there I followed Rappoport's work over to Roy Tuckman's SOMETHING'S HAPPENING late night radio show where I heard his iconoclastic HEALTH NEWS journalistic series, which eventually evolved into the far more stream-of-consciousness FREE FORUM RADIO. You can listen to Harlan Ellison interviewing Jon Rappoport on MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25 on May 22nd, 1987 by clicking HERE.

 

By the way, if you want to check out COVERTACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN #27 (Spring 1987), which is the "Special Issue on the Religious Right" referenced by Rappoport near the end of this episode, then click HERE. Sadly, this topic is even more relevant in 2026 than it was in 1987!

 

If you want to hear Rappoport's prerecorded farewell message to his readers, then click HERE. 
 

Over the years, Rappoport went out of his way to promote several of my books including CRYPTOSCATOLOGY, SPIES & SAUCERS, CHAMELEO, UNTIL THE LAST DOG DIES, and CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES, for which I will always be grateful. You can read Rappoport's review of CHAMELEO by clicking HERE.

 

One of these days, ask me to tell you the story about the strange afternoon in October of 2013 when I was scheduled to meet Rappoport at Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar right next to the Disneyland Hotel only to be waylaid by roving troglodytes instead.

 

Rest in Peace, Jon Rappoport! 

Organized Surveillance and Harassment in Tennessee

Recommended Reading: Stephanie McCrummen's 7-7-26 ATLANTIC article entitled "The Demons of Maryville" (hat tip to Stephen R. Bissette for bringing this article to my attention). Here are three brief excerpts:

EXCERPT #1:  

[Andrea Brewer] began gathering what she called “spiritual intelligence.” She kept track of what demons had been identified during deliverances at the Well [a charismatic-Christian church in Maryville, Tennessee established by Andrea Brewer and her husband, Mike]. As she drove around the area, she told me, she made note of Masonic lodges, tarot-card readers, and anything else that made her feel uneasy. She paid attention to her dreams. Then came the day that Mike noticed an event posted on Facebook, an upcoming fundraiser for local foster kids that involved death-metal and drag performances. The Murvul Punk Toy Drive was being held at a bookstore right across the street.

The Brewers had not heard much about Southland, but scrolling through the shop’s Facebook page, they saw rainbow flags. They saw postings about local Democratic Party meetings and a drum circle, along with videos of past drag shows, including one in which Icky Stardust performed an elaborate routine to a blasting metal version of “White Wedding” and poured fake blood all over their dress. Mike thought that he saw a teenager in the audience.

“It was obvious,” Andrea said. The high-ranking demon influencing the region was Lilith, a Mesopotamian wind goddess who ruled over forbidden sexual desire, and Southland was the stronghold, which Mike defined as a place where certain thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors contrary to God were flourishing. Mike informed the church elders. “I said, ‘We cannot just let this stuff go,’” he told me. “I said, ‘This is evil’” [...].

EXCERPT #2: 

[T]he Brewers turned a conference room at the Well into what they called a “war room.” They put maps of all the surrounding counties on the walls, representing what they considered their spiritual theater of operation. Mike began posting about the fundraiser to his thousands of social-media followers, saying that it was from “the pits of hell.” At some point, he said, someone apparently upset by this sent him an envelope full of excrement; others sent checks and urged him to keep going. A few congregants started “prayer walking” near the bookstore, a tactic of spiritual warfare that had been deployed in the days and weeks before the January 6 insurrection, when people marched around the U.S. Supreme Court and state capitol buildings, calling the Holy Spirit into battle.

Meanwhile, Andrea began doing research into Tennessee laws and found an old statute banning cabaret performances within 1,000 feet of a church. The Brewers sent the information to the local district attorney, the police, the sheriff, and city and county commissioners. Soon, a wider circle of activists and pastors became involved in the cause, including one who had recently held a book burning in the town of Mt. Juliet, about three hours away—a huge bonfire that had drawn a crowd of cheering people who’d tossed copies of Harry Potter and other books deemed demonic into the flames [...].

EXCERPT #3: 

Soon after, [Lisa] Misosky [owner of the Southland bookstore] got a call from the Anti-Defamation League. There had been some chatter about a protest at Southland on neo-Nazi forums that the group monitored. At the time, all kinds of LGBTQ events around the country were being targeted by extremist groups. A gunman had just killed five people and injured 19 at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado. Misosky called the police. She called some local pastors she knew and asked that they show up at the fundraiser wearing their collars. She posted on Facebook that “MAGA fascists” were threatening the toy drive.

The next evening, she stood with dozens of supporters in front of the bookstore, watching as a group of nine men, some with their faces covered with bandannas, marched down a side street and up to the sidewalk in front of the entrance, where police stopped them from going any farther. According to local press reports, the men held signs that read GROOMERS ARE PEDOPHILES and IT’S OK TO BE WHITE. At least one of them appeared to have a gun.

The Brewers said that they had no idea who the protesters were, and that they were at home at the time. On Facebook, Mike speculated that Misosky had organized a “false flag” operation to smear Christians. Later, the ADL and another watchdog group would identify the men as members of a neo-Nazi group called the Tennessee Active Club, part of a network of such clubs across the United States.

To read McCrummen's entire article, click HERE. 

For those of you who have already read my 2015 book, CHAMELEO: A STRANGE BUT TRUE STORY OF INVISIBLE SPIES, HEROIN ADDICTION, AND HOMELAND SECURITY, please note the fact that one could easily replace the words "spiritual intelligence" with "gangstalking" in the above  excerpt, and the meaning of McCrummen's article would remain exactly the same. Alas, unconstitutional surveillance and harassment has always had a religious component to it, going back to the good ol' COINTELPRO days, as I intimated in this passage from CHAMELEO:

Let’s not be obtuse: We’re dealing with a rule-crazy, Puritanical, hypocritical, Old-Testament-style perception of reality that desperately needs to wipe out anything or anyone that is Other. Different. Contrary. 

If devils don’t exist today, rest assured these insane fuckers will figure out a way to bioengineer them into existence tomorrow. And when an unacceptable, transgressive thought invades the holy sanctity of your mind’s eye, the devils will know.

The devils have always known. 

Yes, the old daemons are being summoned from the mists of myth at the courtesy of an unlimited black budget and a military mindset that never forgets—nor forgives. 

The tenets of the Old Testament, along with even more ancient grimoires, are now being deployed as strategic military weapons. What was mere religion yesterday will become covert policy tomorrow. 

Fear God, demands our Novo Ordo Seclorum. Fear the devils He created in his own image. Fear yourself. Fear the invisible. 

That’s the new National Anthem of the Disassociated States of Amurrrica. 

 

Dr. Future and I Return to CONSPIRINORMAL to Discuss the Destruction of the Georgia Guidestones

The latest episode of Adam Sayne and Serfiel Stevenson's CONSPIRINORMAL podcast features an in-depth conversation between Yours Truly and Michael C. Bennett (AKA Dr. Future), author of TWO MASTERS AND TWO GOSPELS, about the unsolved destruction of the Georgia Guidestones. We review THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION'S recent True Crime podcast, WHO BLEW UP THE GUIDESTONES?, a seven-part documentary that shines a spotlight on Bennett's often neglected research into the connections between the infamous eugenicist and white supremacist, Dr. Herbert Kersten, and the creation of the Guidestones. Bennett definitively solved the mystery of who funded the Guidestones in the 2015 documentary, DARK CLOUDS OVER ELBERTON, which Bennett co-wrote and co-produced.

In the second half of the show, we take a side road into the realm of cinephilia and discuss DISCLOSURE DAY, OBSESSION, BACK ROOMS, and one of Bennett's own films, LORD OF THE SHADOWS.

 

You can hear this latest episode of CONSPIRINORMAL on YouTube...

Conspirinormal 507- Dr. Future and Robert Guffey- Georgia Guidestones Revisited:

You can listen to my previous appearances on CONSPIRINORMAL alongside Dr. Future by clicking HERE and HERE.

THE FARM: "Strange Tales From the Beltway: A MAGA PSYOP As An MKULTRA Hearing"

I highly recommend checking out the 7-6-26 episode of THE FARM PODCAST, "Strange Tales From the Beltway: A MAGA PSYOP As An MKULTRA Hearing," in which host Steven Snider deconstructs the recent Republican-led House Oversight Hearing on CIA's MKULTRA Project in great detail.  

Quote of the Day: 

"It's now time to consider the absurdity of [this hearing about MKULTRA]. The implication is that the Democrats (probably in conjunction with the CCP) have induced mass mind control in America among liberals in a bid to assassinate Trump. What was remarkable to me about this implication is that it was made before an audience that--in most cases--had voted for a billionaire, mobbed-up, Zionist, Epstein associate not once, not twice, but three times... and on the basis that he is some populist champion sent forth to save the heartland from the Deep State and the paedocracy. Much of the audience still seems to be True Believers even after Iran and the administration's attempts to suppress the Epstein files. If this isn't mind control, I don't know what is."

--Steven Snider, THE FARM, 7-6-26 

To listen to this entire episode of THE FARM, click HERE.

Among the multiple experts called to testify at the hearing was Tom O'Neill, co-author of the fastidiously researched 2019 book, CHAOS: CHARLES MANSON, THE CIA, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE SIXTIES. Directly below, you will find photos of my well-read (and personally annotated) copy of O'Neill's CHAOS...

 

Happy Birthday, Hunter S. Thompson!

In honor of what would have been Hunter S. Thompson's 89th birthday, I suggest delving into the following books. Assuming you've already read the foundational texts of FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS and FEAR & LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, I recommend checking out the first volume of Thompson's letters, THE PROUD HIGHWAY: SAGA OF A DESPERATE SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN, 1955-1967, as well as his underrated novel, THE RUM DIARY (cited by horror novelist Brian Keene as one of his top five favorite novels). Speaking of Keene... for some time now THE DAMNED HIGHWAY by Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas has been high on my personal Top Ten List of Lovecraft-inspired novels, right alongside Fritz Leiber's OUR LADY OF DARKNESS and Victor LaValle's THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM. If you've ever yearned to read a political novel that combines the cosmic horror of "The Call of Cthulhu" with the amphetamine-fueled, psychedelic mindfuck that is FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, this is your ticket. A sympathetic high school History teacher gave me a copy of FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS when I was seventeen, and I haven't been quite the same since. I've been teaching FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (off and on) to my Composition students at CSU Long Beach since 2002; I now know that book better than myself. In THE DAMNED HIGHWAY, Keene and Mamatas pull off the impossible task of mimicking Thompson's persona without degrading it into a base cartoon caricature. By the time one reaches the final chapter, a great deal of emotional resonance rises unexpectedly off the page. I've been thinking of pairing THE DAMNED HIGHWAY with FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS in my Composition and Creative Writing classes, but I'm not certain the acolytes of Cthulhu would allow me to get away with such a brazen act. 

On a related note, if you want to see HST's personal reading list, check out this previous CryptoPost. 

Other HST related CryptoPosts can be found HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

“Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube.”

—Hunter S. Thompson, KINGDOM OF FEAR, 2003