Weird California

Greg Bishop has been interested in weirdness longer than he can remember. In 1991, he co-founded The Excluded Middle, a magazine featuring UFOs, conspiracy research, and new science. His writing has appeared in many anthologies and publications, including the L.A. Weekly, Fortean Times, and UFO Magazine. In 2005, his first book, Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, was published. He currently hosts Radio Misterioso, which features weird music and interviews with fringe-topic researchers.

Joe Oesterle migrated from New Jersey to the Golden State in the mid-’80s. He has never looked back. Now a freelance artist-writer, Joe worked as the creative director for an advertising agency and as art director/senior editor of the National Lampoon. His work has appeared in USA Today, as well as in many popular books, magazines, and Web sites. Joe wrote and directed an animated short that is shown at the Smithsonian Institution, and has done various projects for Disney, the National Football League, and Warner Brothers.

Mike Marinacci, a lifelong California resident, combines a love of the state’s history with a fascination for the bizarre and inexplicable. Certain that California boasts more haunted houses, monster lairs, cult centers, and other aberrations than any other state, Mike told the stories of one hundred representative paranormal sites in Mysterious California, published in 1988. He is currently at work on another title about the outré side of Golden State culture.