All Human Knowledge

On the one hand, when you're writing a story, the only thing that matters is the story. I don't "believe" things, I just decide which version of a story is the most interesting. As far as I'm concerned, the Cottingley fairy photographs were fakes, but the fairies were real. Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but he was aiming at John Connally.

On the other hand, any story that varies too far or in the wrong way from the facts of the world as it is, is flawed. You have to know as many facts as possible in order to create believable fictions. And though I am never at a loss for ideas, I sometimes need guidance on what to do with a particular idea. In such a situation, there's only one thing to do -- research till your ears bleed! I still prefer libraries, especially university libraries, but there's lots of good leads on the Web, and these are some of the ones we have found useful or intriguing. (Others may be found on other pages. Check out Dana Scully's Bookmarks, for example.) Damon, who is a lot better disciplined at tracking links systematically, found most of these, but the categories reflect both our needs and interests.

Please remember that human knowledge increases arithmetically, and human ignorance geometrically. Some of these references are more reliable than others; none are the last word on any subject. Research requires judgement. We have divided these roughly into Fringe Science, Research & Reference, Myths & Religion, News & Information Services, and Science, to make them easier to sort through. If you think we've put something in one place that belongs in another -- we don't want to hear it. All these realms overlap somewhere, and sometimes you just have to decide on here rather than there.

Fringe Science, Forteana, and Arcana

Cryptozoology

Magic(k) and Occult

UFOs and Extraterrestrials

Research & Reference

Library of Congress Homepage
Hyperhistory
History Net

Government and Other Organizations

It's Not Just a Good Idea...

Medicine