Ivan Terrance Sanderson (January 30, 1911 – February 19, 1973) was a naturalist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was later a naturalized citizen on the United States.

Today Sanderson is especially remembered for two hard-to-find classics of nature writing, Animal Treasure (a report of an expedition to the jungles of then-British West Africa), and Caribbean Treasure (an account of an expedition to various Caribbean islands and British Guyana). Both are well-written and humourous accounts of these scientific expeditions, and anticipate later works by writer-naturalists such as Gerald Durrell.

He conducted a number of expeditions as a teenager and young man into tropical areas in the 1920s and 1930s, gaining widespread fame for his animal collecting, as well as his popular writings on nature and travel. 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 evidence for Lake Monsters, sea serpents, Yeti. and Sasquatch. Sanderson was also interested in the probable biological basis to reports of extraterrestrial sightings, some of which he felt might be amoeba-like outer space animals.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Sanderson was widely published in such journals of popular adventure as True, Sports Afield, and 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, being one of the first recognized animal researchers on television to bring live specimens on talk shows. As his friend and fellow cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has remembered in several of Coleman's books, Sanderson's appearances often involved his discussion of cryptozoological topics on television and on the many radio appearances he also made. Coleman notes that Sanderson could be skeptical. In "Mysterious America," for example, Coleman documents that Sanderson discovered the 1909 "Jersey Devil" flap was an elaborate real estate hoax.

Sanderson founded the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained.

Sanderson was married twice. He died of cancer in the United States in New Jersey, which had become his adopted home.

Works

Nature/travel

• Caribbean Treasure
• Animal Treasure
• The Dynasty of Abu
• How to Know the American Mammals
• Living Mammals of the World

Unexplained phenomenon

• Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life
• Uninvited Visitors: A Biologist Looks At UFOs
• Invisible Residents: The Reality of Underwater UFOs
• Investigating the Unexplained (essays)
• Things (essays)
• More Things (essays)

1911 births | 1973 deaths | Edinburghers | British naturalists | Cryptozoologists | Fortean writers

Ivan T. Sanderson | Ivan T. Sanderson | Ivan T. Sanderson