Rupert Matthews

An exploration of the Jack the Ripper murders through the eyes of the Londoners who lived through it, including eye-witness accounts and inquest testimonies. The shocking murders carried out by an unknown serial killer in London's East End in during the autumn of 1888 dominated the news and public imagination at the time and have continued to exert a baleful influence ever since. But what was it like to live through those terrifying weeks? No matter...

The paranormal is a subject of endless fascination to the book-buying public. There is an insatiable appetite for tales of UFOs, ghosts, bigfoot, and other features of our world that are frequently reported by eyewitnesses but are not yet accepted by science as being genuine phenomena or events. This little book introduces the reader to the world of the paranormal and entertains them with numerous anecdotes, snippets of information and lists of events....

The Ghosthunter's Guide to England takes the reader on a haunted journey round the counties of England. It explains where ghosts have been seen and the human stories that lie behind their inability to rest in peace. England has been described as the most haunted place on earth. The enormous number of ghosts, apparitions, spectres, phantoms, poltergeists and black dogs discovered and detailed in this book chillingly bear this out. Some tales are so...

'Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.' One of the most remarkable actions in ancient or modern military history took place at Thermopylae in 480BC. Rupert Matthews has personally examined the battlefield in order to try to explain how 300 Spartans could hold at bay the hordes of the Persian Emperor Xerxes. This was no vain sacrifice; the delay gave breathing space for the Greek states to organise their defence,...

At the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, such was the build-up of men and materials in the RAF that Lincolnshire was already known as 'Bomber Country'. Its four main airfields-Hemswell, Scampton, Waddington and Cottesmore-were home to eight squadrons of Bomber Command under the legendary Arthur 'Bomber' Harris. To begin with, the task was to drop leaflets over Germany urging them to make peace and overthrow the Nazis. The bombing...

Today the rivalry between St. Andrew and St. George may be fierce but at least it is limited to the sporting field. This was by no means always the case, before the Act of Settlement in the Eighteenth Century (400th Anniversary in March 2003). Author Rupert Matthews has researched more than twenty major battles between these two countries, over a period of 1,000 years. Each battle forms a chapter, explaining the causes of the conflict, the forces...

This is the popular reference edition of the fully-illustrated title, 'Bigfoot'. Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Yowie, Yeti... the idea that monstrous man-apes lurk in the remot e forests and high mountain valleys of the world is an enduring and popular one. In Norht America, hardly a week goes by without report of a fresh encounter with the legendary Sasquatch. In 1793 the Boston Gazette reported a sighting of what the Cherokee call a 'chickly cuddly' or 'hairy...

Poltergeists like causing havoc. They throw things around in people's homes and play tricks with lights and household appliances. Mysterious voices, insistent knocking and weird shrieking can announce their presence, or sometimes it's peculiar smells with no apparent source (the whiff of pipe tobacco or lingering perfumes from another age). One day you might even see a poltergeist as it turns into a full-bodied apparition before your eyes. But beware,...

In this compelling and revealing examination, author Rupert Matthews looks afresh at key episodes of alien activity on earth, and sheds light on the many mysterious phenomena associated with it. From Roswell to Taizé, the book dissects fascinating eyewitness accounts of communication and contact with alien beings, as well as chilling cases of abduction. It also sifts through sinister evidence of government cover-ups. Alien Encounters provides in-depth...

From the Roman invasion, through tall tales of Merlin and King Arthur, and right up to and beyond the incredible power of the mining industry, 'Wales, A Very Peculiar History' takes a quirky, sideways look at some of the slightly bizarre aspects of the home of welsh rarebit, Maelgwn the Dragon, and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Featuring the full gamut of Welsh providence from the coal-mining years to its rebirth in the...