“Did you see this?” my friend’s email read. “Looks good. Right up your alley!”
Attached was a link to a book with a title that instantly caught my eye: The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unknown.
The title also rang a bell. So did the author’s name. “Paranormal Rangers” was one of the most haunting Unsolved Mysteries episodes from Volume 3. It featured two Navajo Nation Rangers assigned to investigate reports of paranormal activity on the reservation. Stanley Milford, Jr. was one of them. (His partner, Jonathan Redbird Dover, was the other.)
It was an absolutely fantastic episode. But also painful. As I wrote in my recap of it, “This episode hurt my heart. It was a shining example of what quality, yet entertaining, paranormal TV could look like. Currently, that landscape is so homogenous and formulaic. It was refreshing to see investigators of another fabric entirely.”
I’m betting some savvy agent or editor saw that episode and realized Milford’s experiences would make a great book. Judging from the reviews, those instincts were spot on. His first book is a hit. Let’s check it out.
About The Paranormal Ranger
Here’s the book’s description:
A Navajo Ranger’s chilling and clear-eyed memoir of his investigations into bizarre cases of the paranormal and unexplained in Navajoland
As a Native American with parents of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, Stanley Milford Jr. grew up in a world where the supernatural was both expected and taboo, where shapeshifters roamed, witchcraft was a thing to be feared, and children were taught not to whistle at night.
In his youth, Milford never went looking for the paranormal, but it always seemed to find him. When he joined the fabled Navajo Rangers—a law enforcement branch of the Navajo Nation who are equal parts police officers, archeological conservationists, and historians—the paranormal became part of his job. Alongside addressing the mundane duties of overseeing the massive 27,000-square-mile reservation, Milford was assigned to utterly bizarre and shockingly frequent cases involving mysterious livestock mutilations, skinwalker and Bigfoot sightings, UFOs, and malicious hauntings.
In The Paranormal Ranger, Milford recounts the stories of these cases from the clinical and deductive perspective of a law enforcement officer. Milford’s Native American worldview and investigative training collide to provide an eerie account of what logic dictates should not be possible.
Reviews
It appears Milford’s written words are as mesmerizing as his spoken ones. The Paranormal Ranger was released on October 1 and was among the New York Times‘ top 22 nonfiction books to read this fall.
Kirkus Reviews praised it as “Engaging reading for adventurous minds.” Steve Gonsalves from Ghost Hunters “highly recommended” it.
Readers clearly agree with the critics. As of this post, it has 4.4 out of 5 stars on Amazon and 3.8 out of 5 on Goodreads.
I haven’t read it yet, but it’s definitely in my TBR pile. I’m just waiting for a loan at the library to become available.
Check-In
Do you know of any other books that followed from Unsolved Mysteries episodes? I’m not entirely sure the “Paranormal Rangers” episode sparked a book deal. It may have been in the works even before the episode aired. But it made me wonder if such a thing had ever happened before. If you know, please leave a comment and fill me in!
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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