The International Cryptozoology Museum Needs Your Help.

Loren Coleman, renowned cryptozoologist and a contributor to Darklore Vol. 1 (Amazon US, & UK), aswell as the upcoming Darklore Vol. 2, finds himself in a rather unpleasant situation. In his latest post at Cryptomundo, he describes the long and stressful legal battle he has fought with the IRS during the last year; how he had to convince them that Cryptozoology is a serious career and not a curious pasttime, and why the International Cryptozoology Museum that he founded and administers is an integral part of his research.

Alas, this whole situation has proven to be taxing (no pun intended) to say the least, since Loren had to hire lawyers and accountants to organize his defense and help him understand the intricacies of the law —something I'm sure may shock most of you, since fiscal legalisms are SO clear and intuitive!

The thing is this: To the IRS and their rules, the museum is currently nothing but a hobby; in the past Loren had a policy of not charging regular visitors but ask for donations instead, and to let film companies access for a fee—with his combined income from book sales and lectures Loren was able to keep his long-term plans of moving the location of the museum to a bigger premise in 10 years or so— But now in order for the government to acknowledge the museum's rightful function and purpose, the museum needs to make more money, or it ceases to exist.

"Realistically, for the museum to continue alone, I have set a goal of $15,000 to raise for the museum in the next three months, to keep the International Cryptozoology Museum alive and deal with finding and moving into new space. I need to find a location that is affordable, which gets good people traffic. In the future, in a new location, the museum will charge a bit and be set up to sell many kinds of cryptozoology books (beyond my own) and cz objects."

If you wish to help, you can send contributions to Loren via his Paypal account (lcoleman@maine.rr.com). If you are planning to visit Maine in the near future, you could also contact Loren & make a reservation to visit his museum —something I personally wish to fulfill someday— and if you would like to hire the services of an internationally famous cryptozoologist to give a lecture at your school, college or community center, you need to look no further.

Oh! and you should also keep in mind that all the contributors of Darklore receive direct revenues from the book sales... I'm just saying, why not kill two birds with a single stone? ;-)

RPJ