Editing Ivan T. Sanderson

{{Short description|British naturalist, writer and cryptozoologist (1911–1973)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{More citations needed|date=August 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name                      = Ivan Terence Sanderson
| image                     = Ivan T. Sanderson 1954.png
| alt                       =
| caption                   =
| birth_name                =
| birth_date                = {{birth date|1911|1|30|mf=y}}
| birth_place               = [[Edinburgh]], Scotland
| death_date                = {{death date and age|1973|2|19|1911|1|30|mf=y}}
| death_place               = [[New Jersey]], United States
| education                 = MA [[Botany]], MA [[Ethnology]]<br />[[Cambridge University]]
| alma_mater                =
| occupation                = Biologist<br />Paranormal Writer
| organization              = [[Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained]]
| website                   = <!-- {{URL|www.example.com}} -->
| footnotes                 =
}}
[[File:Fantastic universe 195711.jpg|thumb|right|Sanderson's essay "What Pilots a UFO?" was cover-featured on the November 1957 issue of ''[[Fantastic Universe]]'']]

'''Ivan Terence Sanderson''' (January 30, 1911 – February 19, 1973) was a British biologist and writer born in [[Edinburgh]], Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Sanderson wrote on nature and travel, and was a frequent guest on television talk shows and variety shows of the 1950s and '60s, displaying and discussing exotic animals. 

Along with Belgian-French biologist [[Bernard Heuvelmans]], Sanderson was a founding figure of [[cryptozoology]], or the study of unknown animals, a field critics describe as a [[pseudoscience]] and [[subculture]]. Sanderson authored material on various [[paranormal]] subjects, and also wrote fiction under the [[pen name]] '''Terence Roberts'''.

==Biography==
Born in Scotland, Sanderson traveled widely in his youth. His father, who manufactured [[whisky]] professionally, was killed by a [[rhinoceros]] while assisting a documentary film crew in Kenya in 1925.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

As a teenager, Sanderson attended [[Eton College]] and at 17 years old began a yearlong trip around the world, spending most time in Asia. Sanderson graduated [[BA Hons]] in [[zoology]] from [[Cambridge University]] faculty of Biology, a degree traditionally upgraded to [[MA (Cantab)]] in [[botany]] and [[ethnology]] after six years without further study.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

He became famous claiming to have seen an "olitiau" (a large [[cryptid]] [[bat]]) after being attacked by a creature he described as "the Granddaddy of all bats". Sanderson conducted a number of expeditions as a teenager and young man into [[tropics|tropical areas]] in the 1920s and 1930s, gaining fame for his animal collecting as well as his popular writings on nature and travel.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

During World War II, Sanderson worked for British Naval Intelligence, in charge of counter-espionage against the Germans in the Caribbean, then for [[British Security Coordination]], finally finishing out the war as a press agent in New York City. Afterwards, Sanderson made New York his home and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In the 1960s Sanderson lived in Knowlton Township in northwestern New Jersey before moving to Manhattan. He died in 1973.<ref>{{Cite news |date=21 February 1973 |title=Ivan Sanderson, naturalist, dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/21/archives/ivan-sanderson-naturalist-dies-author-of-animal-treasure-did-radio.html |access-date=27 March 2025 |work=[[The New York Times]] |pages=46}}</ref>

==Nature writing==
Sanderson published: ''Animal Treasure'', a report of an expedition to the jungles of then-[[British West Africa]]; ''Caribbean Treasure'', an account of an expedition to [[Trinidad]], [[Haiti]], and [[Surinam (Dutch colony)|Surinam]], begun in late 1936<ref>{{Cite news |date=24 December 1937 |title=9 - Sun Seeker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iRxAAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Ivan+T.+Sanderson%22&pg=PA18 |access-date=24 August 2024 |work=The Telegraph |pages=5}}</ref> and ending in late 1938; and ''Living Treasure'', an account of an expedition to [[Jamaica]], [[British Honduras]] (now [[Belize]]) and the [[Yucatan]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rowe |first=Norman |date=31 May 1941 |title=Wild Life in The Tropics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZDNlAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Ivan+T.+Sanderson%22&pg=PA44 |access-date=24 August 2024 |work=The Vancouver Sun |pages=44}}</ref>

Illustrated with Sanderson's drawings, they are accounts of his scientific expeditions, but they are addressed to a popular audience and include somewhat [[purple prose]] of the beauties of nature, as well as humorous anecdotes, some of which may be exaggerated.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sanderson |first=Ivan |date=1940 |title=In Refutation of Mr. A. Loveridge on "Animal Treasure" |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/17124 |journal=The Scientific Monthly |volume=50 |issue=5 |pages=448–454 |jstor=17124 |issn=0096-3771}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Loveridge |first=Arthur |date=1938 |title=If the Blind Lead the Blind Shall...? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/16493 |journal=The Scientific Monthly |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=16–24 |jstor=16493 |issn=0096-3771}}</ref> Sanderson's serious scientific work was published in scientific journals. He collected animals for museums and scientific institutions, and included detailed studies of their behaviors and environments. He also killed and dissected some while in the field.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

== Media appearances ==

In 1948 Sanderson began appearing on American radio and television, speaking as a naturalist and displaying animals. In 1951 he hosted the world's first regularly scheduled colour TV series, [[The World Is Yours (TV series)|''The World is Yours'']]. Sanderson also provided the introduction for 12 episodes of the 1953 television wildlife series ''Osa Johnson's The Big Game Hunt'' a.k.a. ''The Big Game Hunt'' featuring the films of [[Martin and Osa Johnson]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

During the 1950s and 1960s, Sanderson was widely published in such journals of popular adventure as [[True (magazine)|''True'']], ''[[Sports Afield]]'', and [[Argosy (magazine)|''Argosy'']], as well as in the 1940s in general-interest publications such as the ''[[Saturday Evening Post]]''. In the 1950s, Sanderson was a frequent guest on [[John Nebel]]'s paranormal-themed radio program. He was a frequent guest on ''[[The Garry Moore Show]]'',  where he brought live specimens on talk shows.

Sanderson's television appearances with animals led to what he termed his "animal business." Initially Sanderson borrowed or rented animals from zoos in the New York metropolitan area for his TV appearances. In 1950 at a meeting of the National Speleological Society, he met 20-year-old Edgar O. ("Eddie") Schoenenberger, who by 1952 was his assistant (and ultimately partner) in his animal business. Schoenenberger suggested that instead of "renting" animals, they should purchase and house them, and gain some additional income by displaying them in a zoo.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}   

In November 1952, Sanderson purchased the "Frederick Trench place" a 250-year-old farmhouse, outbuildings and {{convert|25|acre}} of land a short ways from the ultimate location of the zoo between the communities of Columbia and Hainesburg. He refurbished and expanded, moving 200 of his rarest animals to a barn nearby so he could keep close watch on them. In the spring of 1954, he established  "Ivan Sanderson’s Jungle Zoo" and Laboratory, a permanent, summer, roadside attraction near Manunka Chunk, White Township, Warren County, New Jersey.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}  

Sanderson developed and toured winter traveling exhibits of rare and unusual animals for sports shows and department stores. A fire on the night of Tuesday or early morning hours of Wednesday, February 2, 1955 destroyed his collection of 45 rare animals kept in a barn at his New Jersey home. Ivan Sanderson's Jungle Zoo was flooded out by the Delaware River during the floods caused by [[Hurricane Diane]] on August 19, 1955.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

== Cryptozoology and the paranormal ==

Sanderson was an early follower of [[Charles Fort]]. Later he became known for writings on topics such as [[cryptozoology]], a word Sanderson coined in the early 1940s, with special attention to the search for [[lake monsters]], [[sea serpents]], [[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]], [[Giant-penguin hoax|giant penguins]], [[Yeti]], and [[Sasquatch]].

Sanderson's book ''Abominable Snowmen'' argued that there are four living types of [[Yeti|abominable snowmen]] scattered over five continents.<ref name="Straus">{{cite journal|author=Straus, William L.|year=1962|title=Review: Myth, Obsession, Quarry?|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.136.3512.252.b|volume=136|issue=3512|pages=252|doi=10.1126/science.136.3512.252|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=10 November 1961 |title=What About The "Abominable Snowman?" |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YlxhAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Ivan+T.+Sanderson%22&pg=PA6 |access-date=24 August 2024 |work=Washington Reporter |pages=6}}</ref> The book was criticized in the ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'' journal as unscientific. The reviewer noted that "unfortunately, the author's concept of what constitutes scientific evidence will scarcely be accepted by most scientists. His standards are unbelievably low."<ref name="Straus"/> The reviewer noted how Sanderson relied heavily and uncritically upon anecdotal reports and dubious footprints.<ref name="Straus"/>

Sanderson's credibility was damaged with his endorsement of the [[giant penguin hoax]]. In 1948 (and the next decade), giant three-toed footprints were found at [[Clearwater Beach]] in Florida.<ref name="Radford">Radford, Benjamin. (2014). ''Bigfoot at 50: Evaluating a Half-Century of Bigfoot Evidence''. In Bryan Farha. ''Pseudoscience and Deception: The Smoke and Mirrors of Paranormal Claims''. [[University Press of America]]. p. 167. {{ISBN|978-0-7618-6292-5}}</ref> Sanderson proclaimed that the footprints were impossible to fake and were made by a fifteen-foot tall penguin. In 1988, prankster Tony Signorini admitted that with a friend he had made the footprints by a pair of cast iron feet attached to high-top sneakers.<ref name="Radford"/> His friend and fellow cryptozoologist [[Loren Coleman]]  says that Sanderson could be skeptical. In ''Mysterious America,'' Coleman writes that Sanderson discovered the 1909 "[[Jersey Devil]]" incident was an elaborate real estate hoax.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

Sanderson founded the Ivan T. Sanderson Foundation in August 1965 on his New Jersey property, which became the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU) in 1967. SITU was a non-profit organization that investigated claims of strange phenomena ignored by mainstream science.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

== Vile vortices ==
Sanderson has been described as credulous for suggesting that aircraft and boats went missing at [[Devil's Sea]] because of a wrinkle in [[spacetime]], gravitational or magnetic aberrations, [[Extraterrestrial life|extra-terrestrials]] or mysterious underwater people.<ref name="Williams">Williams, William F. (2000). ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy''. [[Infobase Publishing|Facts on File Inc]]. p. 82. {{ISBN|1-57958-207-9}}</ref> [[Larry Kusche]], who traced the Devil's sea stories to their original sources, suggested that the phenomena of Devil's Sea had been fabricated and was an exaggeration based on the loss of several fishing boats over a period of five years.<ref name="Williams"/> Sanderson was a proponent of the [[space animal hypothesis]], which argued flying saucers or UFOs may be caused not by technological alien spacecraft or mass hysteria, but rather by animal lifeforms that are indigenous to Earth's atmosphere or interplanetary space.<ref name="WhoDiscovered">{{Cite magazine |date=15 December 1957 |title=Who "Discovered Space Animals"? |url=http://www.cufos.org/CSI_NY/CSI_NY_%2322.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214054202/http://www.cufos.org/CSI_NY/CSI_NY_%2322.pdf |archive-date=14 February 2021 |magazine=CSI News Letter |publisher=Civilian Saucer Intelligence of N.Y. |page=31 |issue=10}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PD85DwAAQBAJ|title=Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions|first=Jeffrey J.|last=Kripal|date=November 14, 2017|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-12682-1 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref name="NYSkeptics">{{Cite web |last=Mullis |first=Justin |date=February 8, 2023 |title=Jordan Peele's 'NOPE': cryptids in the clouds? |url=https://aiptcomics.com/2023/02/08/jordan-peele-nope-cryptids-ufos-uap/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230208141547/https://aiptcomics.com/2023/02/08/jordan-peele-nope-cryptids-ufos-uap/ |archive-date=8 February 2023 |access-date=24 August 2024 |website=AIPT}}</ref> 

In 1968, Sanderson introduced the concept of the "vile vortex". Vile vortices are supposed to be "anomalic regions" regularly distributed on Earth where disproportionately many strange phenomena occur, such as disappearances, UFO sightings, or poltergeist activity. The first and second "vile vortex" were the [[Bermuda Triangle]] and the [[Devil's Sea]]. Larry Kusche analyzed the data underlying that idea and found it insufficient.<ref name="Kusche, 1975">[[#refKusche,1986|Kusche, 1986]], pp. 261-265</ref>

==Personal life==
Sanderson was married twice. His first wife Alma accompanied him in the travels discussed in ''Caribbean Treasure'' and ''Living Treasure''.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

He died of [[brain cancer]] in New Jersey, which had become his adopted home.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

==Works==
===Nature/travel===
*''Green silence: Travels through the jungles of the Orient'', [[D. McKay Co.]], 1974, {{ISBN|0-679-50487-7}}.
*''Animal Treasure'', The [[Viking Press]], September 1937, hardback; [[Pyramid Books]], July 1966, paperback.
*''Ivan Sanderson's Book of Great Jungles'', [[Julian Messner]], 1965, hardback.
*''Caribbean Treasure'', The Viking Press, November 1939, hardback, {{ISBN|0-670-20479-X}}; Pyramid Books, November 1965, paperback, second printing July 1966.
*''Living Treasure'', The Viking Press, April 1941, hardback, second printing April 1945; Pyramid Books, September 1965, paperback.
*''The Dynasty of Abu a History and Natural History of the elephants and Their Relatives Past and Present'', [[Alfred A. Knopf]], 1962, hardback.
*''The Continent We Live On'', [[Random House]], 1961. 
*''Living mammals of the world in color: A treasury of real-life, natural-color photographs and complete up-to-date, accurate description of 189 mammals'', Hanover House, 1958.
*''Follow the Whale'', Little Brown, 1956, hardback.
*''The Silver Mink'', [[Little, Brown, and Company]], 1952. Young adult fiction.
*''How to Know the American Mammals'', [[Little, Brown and Company]], 1951, hardback.

===Paranormal subjects===
*''Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life: The Story Of Sub-Humans On Five Continents From The Early Ice Age Until Today'', [[Adventures Unlimited Press]], 2006, paperback, {{ISBN|1-931882-58-4}}, originally published 1961.
*''Uninvited Visitors: A Biologist Looks At UFOs'', [[Cowles Education Corporation]], 1967, hardback.
*''Things'' (essays), [[Pyramid Books]], 1967, paperback.
*''More Things'' (essays), Pyramid Books, 1969, paperback.
*''Invisible Residents: The Reality of Underwater UFOs'', with [[David Hatcher Childress]], Adventures Unlimited Press, 2005, paperback, {{ISBN|1-931882-20-7}}, originally published 1970.
*''Investigating the Unexplained'' (essays) [[Prentice Hall]], 1972, hardback, {{ISBN|0-13-502229-0}}.
*''Things and More Things'' (essays), combined and reprinted by Adventures Unlimited Press, 2007, paperback, {{ISBN|1-931882-78-9}}

===Fiction under the name Terence Roberts===
*''Mystery Schooner'', [[Viking Press]], 1944, hard cover.
*''Report on the Status Quo'', [[Merlin Press]], 1955, hard cover.
*''Black Allies'' (short story) published in [[The Saint Magazine]]: March [Mar] 1967

==References==
{{Reflist}}
* {{cite book
| title = The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved
| year = 1986
| first = Lawrence David
| last = Kusche
| isbn = 0-87975-971-2
| publisher = Prometheus Books
| location = Buffalo, NY
| ref = Kusche, 1986
}}

==Further reading==

*Clark, Jerome, ''Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena''; Detroit, Visible Ink Press; 1993, {{ISBN|0-8103-9436-7}}
* Hall, Mark A., "The World of Ivan Sanderson," in ''Wonders'' '''8''' (3): 67–85 (in annual compilation), Sept. 2003
* Hall, Mark A., "The Works of Ivan Terence Sanderson (1911–1973)," in ''Wonders'' '''8''' (3): 86–90 (in annual compilation), Sept. 2003
*Story, Ronald, "Sanderson, Ivan T[erence]" pages 315-317 in ''The Encyclopedia of UFOs'', Ronald Story, editor; Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1980, {{ISBN|0-385-13677-3}}

==External links==
*[http://www.sacred-texts.com/lcr/abs/index.htm Abominable Snowmen, full text at sacred-texts.com]
* {{IMDb name|0761791}}
* {{Isfdb name|25323}}

{{Cryptozoology}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanderson, Ivan Terrance}}
[[Category:1911 births]]
[[Category:1973 deaths]]
[[Category:American fortean writers]]
[[Category:Cryptozoologists]]
[[Category:Writers from Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Deaths from brain cancer in New Jersey]]
[[Category:British nature writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century British naturalists]]
[[Category:People educated at Eton College]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States]]
[[Category:British emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Television personalities from Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Admiralty personnel of World War II]]