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The Slenderman Mysteries: An Internet Urban Legend Comes to Life Paperback – February 19, 2018

by Nick Redfern (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 66 ratings
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It's the dead of night; you are fast asleep. Suddenly, you are wide awake but unable to move. Hunched over you in the shadows is an eight- or nine-foot-tall gaunt entity with spider-thin limbs, dressed in an old-style black suit, its pale face missing eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. You finally manage to cry out. The monstrous thing disappears as suddenly as it appeared.

You just had a terrifying encounter with the Slenderman.

Who--or what--is the Slenderman? His existence began on the Internet, but he didn't stay online. The Slenderman may be a tulpa, a thought-form that can stride out of our darkest imaginations and into reality if enough people believe in it. In May 2014, two young Milwaukee girls almost killed a friend in the name of the Slenderman. Perhaps, like the vast Skynet system in the Terminator movies, the Internet is turning against us--and attacking us with digital equivalents of our own online nightmares.

The Slenderman has come to life. For the first time, this book reveals the full and fear-filled saga.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Weiser
  4. Publication date
    February 19, 2018
  5. Dimensions
    5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781632651129
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1632651129
  8. See all details
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From the Publisher

Eric Knudsen, Victor Surge, Something Awful, ghost, ghosts, ghost story, boogey man, bloody Mary
Slender man, slenderman, Urban legend, folklore, myths, mysteries, supernatural

The creepiest & hostile creature that the Internet has ever seen: The Slenderman

The Slenderman has curious origins. He began 'life' purely as an Internet creation, specifically the work of a man named Eric Knudsen. In June 2009, Knudsen, via the pseudonym of 'Victor Surge,' uploaded a couple of doctored photos of the Slenderman to the Something Awful website forum. In no time at all, others began writing and posting their very own tales of the Slenderman. Short stories, blogs, novels, online games, chat-rooms, and more soon followed.

Has The Slenderman come to life?

Then, something menacing and sinister happened: People all across the world began to see the Slenderman. Not just on the Internet, not in novels or in the pages of comic-books, but in their homes. In their bedrooms. In mysterious woods. In dreams that rapidly escalated into full-blown nightmares. Since 2009, countless numbers of people claim to have seen, and been attacked, plagued, and terrified by this skeletal, pale giant in black.

But how could such a thing have happened?

Nick Redfern reveals the full fear-filled saga of Slenderman

  • Where did he come from?
  • What does he want from us?
  • Could the Slenderman take a running leap out of the Internet & into our very homes?
  • What are the many witnesses to the Slenderman telling us?
  • Is there just one creature, or are we looking at multiple Slendermen?
  • How can we stop him from terrorizing and torturing us?
  • Can we stop him?
  • Or has he become an unstoppable, unbeatable nightmare?
Nick Redfern, Redfern

Meet Nick Redfern

Nick Redfern is the author of more than 40 books on UFOs, aliens, Bigfoot, lake monsters, the Abominable Snowman, and Hollywood scandals, including Immortality of the Gods; Weapons of the Gods; Bloodline of the Gods; Monster Files; Memoirs of a Monster Hunter; The Real Men in Black; The NASA Conspiracies; Keep Out!; The Pyramids and the Pentagon; Contactees; The World’s Weirdest Places; For Nobody’s Eyes Only; and Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind.

He has appeared on many TV shows, including the Travel Channel’s Mysteries of the Outdoors; the BBC’s Out of This World; the SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive; the History Channel’s Monster Quest and America’s Book of Secrets; Science’s The Unexplained Files; the National Geo- graphic Channel’s Paranatural; and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Nick lives on the fringes of Dallas, Texas.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author


Nick Redfern is the author of more than thirty books on UFOs, Bigfoot, and cryptozoology, including Monster Files, Memoirs of a Monster Hunter, and The Real Men in Black. He has appeared on more than seventy television shows, including the SyFy Channel's Proof Positive, the History Channel's Ancient Aliens, and MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1632651122
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Weiser; First Edition (February 19, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781632651129
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1632651129
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 66 ratings

About the author

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Nick Redfern

Nick Redfern

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Nick Redfern is a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO sightings, government conspiracies, alien abductions and paranormal phenomena. He writes regularly for the London Daily Express newspaper, Fortean Times, Fate, and UFO Magazine. His previous books include Three Men Seeking Monsters, Strange Secrets, Cosmic Crashes, and The FBI Files. Among his many exploits, Redfern has investigated reports of lake monsters in Scotland, vampires in Puerto Rico, werewolves in England, aliens in Mexico, and sea serpents in the United States. Redfern travels and lectures extensively around the world. Originally from England, he currently lives in Dallas, Texas.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
66 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Admiralu
5.0 out of 5 stars Complete & Exhaustive Coverage of the Phenomenon
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2019
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This was another extensively researched book by author Nick Redfern. Considering that the subject was a fictional creation, a wide variety of similarities to other creatures and real world encounters that are frightening have happened. He explores a number of topics from other examples from history, encounters here and abroad and far more things than you would expect are covered here. Everything and nearly anything relating to the Slender man is here. I read this book using immersion reading while listening to the audiobook. Narrator Shaun Grindell does a great job describing all the strange details. A must for cryptid fans.
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A_Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview of Slenderman
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2018
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This short book is a review of Slenderman's origins and possible inspirations, along with some stories of people who believe they've encountered him (or encountered IT).

Redfern is best in exploring similar beings and concepts that proceeded Slenderman: the Men in Black, Lovecraft's monsters, all the way back to the Pied Piper of Hamlin. I'm less impressed with the other sections, such as accounts from people who say they saw Slenderman or the idea that people's collective thoughts somehow magically summoned him. I think Slenderman is just an imaginary concept that latched onto people's imagination ... including me. Not sure if Redfern really believes all the supernatural stuff or if he's just catering to an audience. Probably yes he's a believer, considering he's made a career out of stuff like this.

The writing is clear and direct, and the book is highly recommended.
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Dr Bryan Fergus
5.0 out of 5 stars Nick Redfern's Best Yet
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2022
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Well-written and meticulously researched. I especially appreciated the deep dive into pre-2009 references to and appearances of this mythological creature. The discussion of possible theories that led to the internet phenomenon and the impact of this creature on public consciousness and potential sightings was fascinating. Recommended.
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Sandman
5.0 out of 5 stars Well Researched
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2019
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I have been a Nick Redfern can for many years and I've read a lot of his books. This one interested me because I've had my own encounter with Slenderman. This book was very well researched by Mr. Redfern and touched on several things that happened with my experience. This is a very good read and is very informative.
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Honest Reviewer
3.0 out of 5 stars One finds only hints of a more incisive and fascinating and disturbing book within.
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018
The Slenderman (or "Slender Man") began its life in June 2009, a creepypasta (derived from “copypasta,” itself derived from “cut and paste”) internet meme created by artist Eric Knudsen, initially submitted to a Photoshop contest on the horror website Something Awful. The meme went viral, inspiring others to contribute their own Slender Man stories and photos. This broadening “fan fiction” soon branched out into computer games and a youtube webisode series entitled Marble Hornets, resulting in an increasingly ornate mythology. Knudsen had clearly tapped into a psychologically potent image – a faceless, tall, thin, dark-suited, tentacled entity, a modern day bogeyman that drew its influence from sources as diverse as H.P. Lovecraft, the Men in Black, the Shadow People, and the Mad Gasser of Matoon.

In 2014, two twelve year old girls, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, residents of Waukesha, Wisconsin, conspired to murder their best friend, Payton Lautner, as a bizarre sacrifice to the Slender Man. Weier and Geyser had read about him on the website Creepypasta, where it was said that he was most often seen in the woods around suburban populations, preying primarily upon children. Both girls had been experiencing visual hallucinations of the Slender Man, and Geyser claimed to have had telepathic communications with the creature. Their sacrifice of Lautner was intended to convince the Slender Man to spare Weier and Geyser and their families. The girls led Lautner into a nearby state forest, and Geyser proceeded to stab Lautner nineteen times with a five inch steak knife. Miraculously, Lautner survived. The crime garnered worldwide notoriety. Geyser and Weier later stood trial for attempted murder and were sentenced to forty and twenty-five years in criminal mental institutions, respectively.

The crime was tragic, yet rich with psychological, sociological, criminological, and folkloric complexity. In Nick Redfern's The Slenderman Mysteries, such intricacies are largely disregarded, and receive only a cursory examination. Redfern instead focuses on the less prosaic – yet far less disturbing – paranormal elements surrounding the Slender Man phenomenon, principally the notion that the Slender Man may have acquired a life of his own in a literal sense; i.e. that he is a tulpa, or a "thought-form" given autonomous physical embodiment by virtue of enough people coming to believe in his existence. As evidence of this, Redfern points to an episode of Coast to Coast AM that aired, quite coincidentally, on the late evening and early hours prior to the attack on Lautner. The theory, as near as I can make it, is that, because it reached a massive audience, this synchronous broadcast, by increasing belief in the Slender Man's evidence, "helped cause the event," which is a rather awkward – not to mention irresponsible – assertion at best, as the perpetrators had clearly planned the murder well in advance of the episode's airing. Redfern uses this notion of the Slender Man-as-tulpa as a springboard, from which he fancifully proposes, without much evidence to back it up, that the internet itself may have, à la Skynet or the Matrix, developed its own peculiar consciousness, of which the Slender Man is one manifestation; a fiction that has somehow become magically "entangled" with reality.

Still another theory, expounded upon at length by Redfern, is the belief that the Slender Man in fact existed prior to 2009, and that Knudsen merely tapped into something that was already there, which is a bit like proclaiming that Stephen King invented scary clowns. Knudsen wasn’t harnessing an objective entity, but rather reflecting our collective fear of the unknown. The Slender Man's facelessness suggests an indeterminate being, one that rests uneasily just beyond the realm of the comprehension; faces generally indicate whether one intends harm or not and if something is faceless, its intentions too remain disturbingly inscrutable. Similarly, his tentacles are suggestive of slithering snakes, or creatures of the deep. There's also the standby dark mansion, dark woods, and, especially, the familiar taker of children theme, a common folkloric trope that stretches back from Grimm's fairy tales to the very beginnings of storytelling; discussing the reasons for the potency of the Slender Man mythology, Redfern dutifully makes reference to the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

In the chapters where Redfern directs his attention to this reality – and there are too few, really – such as in his discussions of the Slender Man’s origins and influences, or its echoing of common folkloric themes, The Slenderman Mysteries substantially improves, yet even here Redfern’s research – comprised primarily of a handful of original interviews with other writers or experiencers – is cursory and wanting. The circumstances concerning the real world attempted murder committed by psychologically damaged twelve-year-olds and a number of other Slender Man-related events, introduced approximately one-third of the way through, remain more mystifying than Redfern's speculative, supernatural "mysteries." These incidences should be central to his book, yet, given the target audience, this precipitating event is almost begrudgingly raised and then quickly discarded. Redfern is at his best is when he quits the armchair – or internet – investigating, and rather fruitless speculations and contemplation of coincidences and conspiracies, and actually pauses to consider the more chilling real-world causes and implications of the phenomenon. As it stands, one finds only hints of a more incisive and fascinating and disturbing book within. -- Eric Hoffman, Fortean Times
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Violet Bunny
4.0 out of 5 stars Don't Read This Alone at Night!
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2018
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As usual, another quick read by Nick Redfern. I'd never heard of the infamous title character until a month or so ago, when a true crime drama was televised about the 2 young girls attacking their friend in Wisconsin. So I thought I'd get some background info on the subject. Fascinatingly odd how multitudes of people seem to suffer from the same mass hallucination. The stuff of nightmares indeed!
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S. O'Toole
5.0 out of 5 stars A terrifying possibility...
Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2018
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The latest by researcher Nick Redfern has been highly anticipated because I know so little about the Slenderman story and NIck's always a great source to turn to for in-depth coverage. But, really? An internet hoax that has developed a life of its own? Come on! But...it kind of has. It's not just a social experiment that got out of control; if Nick's theory is correct, this is a monstrosity born of the internet age and set loose on the world!
Hard to believe? Read this book and see if the theory doesn't make sense. It's creepy, it's puzzling and it's fascinating. Is it correct? If it is we're all in trouble...
One person found this helpful
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Kayla Collins
1.0 out of 5 stars Wasn't into it
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2020
when I bought it and read the first few pages, I knew I would hate it, so I stopped, not to be a hater Nick, but It's just not my type of book so I deleted it from my library.
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Powerslave
3.0 out of 5 stars Redfern is wrong...
Reviewed in Canada on February 25, 2018
Verified Purchase
The book is entertaining but I think Redfern jumps to conclusions by saying that this "slenderman" is a thought-form. It cannot be a thought-form simply because the slenderman is a purely fictitious character. In order for it to be a thought-form millions of people would have to believe that the slenderman REALLY EXISTS. That's the same reason why Superman can't manifest in our world as a thought-form. The strange entity described in the book is probably a Jinn (or multiple Jinns) taking the form of the slenderman to scare and/or manipulate people (especially children). I also don't believe the old cases he mentions are in any way linked to the recent ones. We're dealing with evil entities that go back to time immemorial and can take multiple forms.
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Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and detailed review of the history of the Slenderman
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 5, 2018
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An excellent account of the Slenderman including it's origins and historical precedents. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about one of the most intriguing mysteries of the 21st Century
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Jan Ritterfeld
2.0 out of 5 stars Occult conspiracy theory rather than scientific analysis.
Reviewed in Germany on March 8, 2018
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A nice summary of the history of the Slenderman mythos. After the first few chapters it becomes a bunch of supernatural and occult jibberish, based on a lot of anecdotal "evidence". It's a pity, I was hoping for a scientific analysis of the Slenderman mythos, not just some pseudo-scientific theorizing. It helped me for my thesis though, as an example on how even in modern days fictional stories can become actual myth with an influence on the real world.
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Kevin Boone
2.0 out of 5 stars Hmm.... not really what I expected. Could do with a more robust editor
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 23, 2018
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I quite like Mr Redfern's writing, and his general attitude to the unexplained -- open-minded but not overly credulous -- is one that generally matches my own. However, I wasn't really convinced by this one. Slenderman _is_ an Internet urban myth -- as the book title acknowledges -- and I'm not sure there is much mileage in searching for traditional, folkloric antecedents for it. What I was really expecting was an analysis of how a rather silly, obvious prank became a global phenomenon so quickly -- that is, what it is about Slenderman that people -- particularly kids -- respond to so powerfully. There are, I think, psycho-social explanations for this that are more convincing than an argument that there might be something "real" about the phenomenon. I was kind-of expecting the book to explore the way that the Internet assists in spreading urban myths.

In addition, I think the book would have benefited from more robust editing. There are quite a few trivial errors, like missing and repeated words. There's also some repetition that probably needs to be removed. This kind of thing is OK on a web blog, but I expect better when I'm paying real money.
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