Archive for the ‘cryptozoology’ category
January 13, 2014
– – On Monsters and Mysteries in America as recently aired on the Destination America channel, we were treated to a full banquet consisting of segments on Bigfoot Wars, Evil Gnomes, and Hell Hounds. Much of this good stuff was reported in the vicinity of the Sierra Mountains in California, where according to legends, Bigfoot guards certain areas and defends them as his own. It seems that in prehistoric times, Native Americans and Bigfoot creatures came to blows when Bigfoot invaded Native American settlements, stealing and reportedly eating a child. In the culture clash wars which ensued, Native American spear and arrow technology was apparently sufficient to cause negotiation of a peace between the two groups, and the establishment of separate territories, boundaries of which are respected and enforced to this day.
In 2011, an expedition ventured into a Sierra Mountains canyon, where howling and screams were heard at night and audio was recorded of the same. The next day, one of two trucks used by the expedition became mired in the mud, and the expedition party departed in their one usable vehicle. When they returned for their second truck days later, the access road was barricaded in four locations, with the last obstructions so massive as to barely be movable; it was speculated that these barricades were warnings to the expedition members that their presence wasn’t wanted in that territory. Finally making their way back to the abandoned truck, the investigators found a large smudge on the vehicle’s windshield of a beast’s face. DNA was later extracted from the slobber, but showed human contamination. Might this finding possibly reflect a possible partial human heritage to Bigfoot as some have speculated?
A second segment reflected events in Porterville, California where a family was supposedly plagued by an “evil gnome.” No, I am not making this up! Reports of gnome-like creatures come from diverse locations around the world. The Thomas family in 1999 heard running noises and cackling laughter around their home prior to a face-to-face encounter returning home one night from a shopping trip; on that occasion, the panicked mother ran into her house. Later, the gnome reportedly came up to a window, cheeky devil! Two nights later, the gnome trashed the family garden, and repeated vandalisms occurred thereafter. Eventually the family moved, but later contacted a former resident at the property who had experienced similar problems. The gnome was thought to have lived in a shed on the property which was later demolished. He was probably distraught over that; there’s no place like gnome…
Finally in Palm Springs, California there are reports of hell hounds, which are described as being black with glowing eyes and razor fangs. In 2013 a retired guy reports having seen a pack of them, saying that they looked like dogs with the head of a wolf, and larger in size than these species. A neighboring man had his car cover and bumper ripped up pretty impressively, presumably by these beasties…
Categories: animals, anomalies, anthropomorphic, cryptozoology, furry, mysteries, strange happenings, unexplained, unidentified
Tags: Bigfoot wars, Gnomes, he'll hounds
Comments: 3 Comments
December 30, 2013
– – Monsters and Mysteries in America recently provided us with three nightmares after Xmas in a new episode, just the right antidote for the holiday season! Momo it would appear is a Missouri version of Bigfoot, described by those who have seen if not loved him as a long-haired beast covered in fur and emanating a stench! In 1972, “Missouri Momo” generated quite a commotion in the confusingly-named town of Louisiana, Missouri for several months. He was spotted by two boys and their mother, and is blamed for the disappearance of several dogs, which the creature apparently has an appetite for. The only physical evidence of Momo, however, is a plaster cast of a footprint showing a deep heel imprint and unusual toes…
Shadow people are reported to haunt Maryville, Missouri, with some claiming to have seen full-figure apparitions. These tall, dark creatures are sometimes reported with glowing red eyes, and one subtype apparently is seen wearing a brimmed hat. One person reports repeated, long-term encounters with a shadow person he calls, “the Cowboy.” So persistent and brazen was this entity that he knocked on the window of the haunted man’s car! Shadow people can sometimes be seen straight on, and in such encounters their appearance is especially ghastly, for they can appear bloodied, burnt, and mutilated. In some encounters, shadow people have verbally communicated dark desires to the persons visited that they abandon or harm family members…
Lastly, the Van Meter Monster was an unwelcome visitor to a town of the same name in Iowa in 1903 who ushered forth from a coal mine located across the town. The creature is said to resemble a large, somewhat humanized bat with featherless wings and the rather convenient feature of a light which emanates from a horn on the beast’s forehead; in my opinion, sketches make it look rather prehistoric, like a pterodactyl. Townspeople of that day were alerted to the presence of the creature by the appearance of light at night, often projected from a height at a time prior to electrification of the town. The monster was reportedly shot at by a number of individuals and not harmed by the experience, in one encounter casting a foul odor at the shooter. After several nights of such experiences, manly men of that day gathered firearms and dynamited the mouth of the mine which apparently served as a portal for the creature. The mine has remained closed since that time, with the bat-man unavailable for comment, evidently sealed within…what a great tale!
Categories: anomalies, anthropomorphic, controversial, cryptozoology, television, unexplained, unidentified, urban legends
Tags: Momo, Myths & Monsters, Shadow People
Comments: 3 Comments
December 23, 2013
– – It’s not easy to come up with an hour’s worth of strangeness to feed an audience every week, but Monsters & Mysteries in America tries its best to give us a steady diet of it. Three segments of a recent episode occurred in or near the Bridgewater Triangle in Massachusetts, where apparently trolls don’t just frequent the internet, but may also be found trying to lure people into the forest. The Pukwudgie is described as being a three to four foot high creature capable of speech who can’t attack intended victims directly, but tries to entice them to follow to some foul and unimaginable fate. Cases presented involving the Pukwudgie included a 1995 encounter when a man and his dog heard a creature supposedly say “We want you,” and a 2008 event when a video camera is said to have captured an image of one at the edge of the forest.
A second segment “Alien Brood” centered on twin sisters who reported being repeatedly abducted by aliens as children with successive abductions occurring into their adulthood. When children, the sisters contended that they were visited by aliens at night who paralyzed and levitated them and took them into a spacecraft, with injuries found by the sisters on their bodies the next day. As adults, the sisters reportedly were subjected to alien “reproductive procedures” and turned into “breeders” for the production of alien “gray”-human hybrids. One 2007 encounter was termed especially violent, and one sister reported meeting a hybrid child during a later abduction.
The third segment involved three sightings of the “Dover Demon” over two nights by teenagers in April of 1977 in the Massachusetts town of Dover. The creature is said to have a huge head almost the size of his body with no visible mouth and large, glowing eyes. Described as neither human nor animal, the unidentified cryptid resembles the Gollum in the Lord of the Rings saga…
Categories: aliens, anomalies, cryptozoology, speculation, strange happenings, television, unexplained, weird
Tags: aliens, Monsters & Mysteries, Pukwudgie
Comments: 6 Comments
December 17, 2013
– – A recent episode of Monsters & Mysteries in America as viewed on the Destination America channel lured viewers in with the assorted collection of paranormal and unexplained curiosities listed in our post title, unified only by their Texas location. The segments were entertaining with content mostly seen elsewhere but mounted differently here, and healthy scientific skepticism is encouraged due to the speculative nature of the topics. Their appearance in this blog does not mean personal endorsement of the viewpoints or explanations given by such programs.
The Goat Man segment concerned reported appearances of a large, hair-covered cryptic creature six to seven feet tall estimated to weigh 300 to 400 pounds in the Lake Worth area of Fort Worth, Texas. In some accounts, the beast is reported to have scales on its face and horns on its head about six to eight inches long. Also known as the Mud Man, appearances of the creature were multiple in the summer of 1969, after which time it seemed to go into hiding until being seen again in summer of 1990. In one encounter portrayed, the Goat Man came out of trees to land on top of a car parked in a lover’s lane in the Lake Worth area, trying to grab the arm of the woman within.
A second segment of the hour episode concerned the chupacabra sightings in the Cuero, Texas area. Some reported footage of an unidentified beast with a massive head and ears was presented that was filmed from a pursuing sheriff’s car in 2008; canid-like, this creature escaped further pursuit and identification by running off the road. A nutritionist, Dr. Phylis Canion, was then portrayed whose ranch had experienced chicken slaughter incidents. A deceased specimen of the beast was found on a nearby road, and actually maintained by the woman in a home freezer before being sent out for testing; DNA results did not match the creature with known animals such as dogs or coyotes, with the conclusion made that it was an unknown species. Some have concluded that the Cuero chupacabra is a hybrid creature, possibly with a skin condition such as mange. The segment differentiated the Cuero sightings from those associated with chupacabra sightings and encounters in Puerto Rico, where the creature is more alien in appearance and apparently capable of at least some degree of bipedalism.
Lastly and perhaps with least credibility was a report of “zombie soldiers” in the Brownsville area of southern Texas, with the suggestion made that such appearances are associated with fighting in the area which occurred in the Mexican-American or Civil War. The shorter segment detailed an incident in summer of 1985 when a young couple in a truck pulled off on a side road at night to pursue some sleep. A knock came at the truck door with the couple exiting the truck cab to investigate, following a light seen ahead, and subsequently being encircled by zombie-like individuals attired in similar fashion, as in “Walking Dead”episodes. The couple managed to make their way back to the safety of their truck, and gunning the vehicle escaped in it back to the main road. Handprints were later discovered all over the truck’s exterior. A bloody battle of the American Civil War had supposedly taken place on the grounds of their encampment in 1865.
Hinging just on the account of the couple involved, the third segment had the flavor of an urban myth, although the area involved has a history supportive of ghostly encounter tales…pleasant screams!
Categories: animals, anomalies, anthropomorphic, cryptozoology, furry, strange happenings, unexplained, unidentified
Tags: chupacabra, Goat Man, Monsters & Mysteries, zombie soldiers
Comments: 2 Comments
December 12, 2013
– – A recent episode of Haunted Highway on the Syfy channel sent the two-person investigative team of Devin and Jael to Lake Murray in South Carolina in the U.S. This large lake, ranging in depths of over 200 feet, has had accounts dating back to the 1930’s of a large, unidentified aquatic creature about 40 to 60 feet long with a snake-like body and scales the size of a hand. Many reported appearances of the beast have been with accompanying acts of aggression towards the observers, including boats being struck. It is considered a kind of cousin to the Loch Ness monster, and is nicknamed “Messie.”
Taking a boat out into the lake, the investigative team saw a large shadow in the water which disappeared. They then went to Dreher Island in the lake, where something struck the boat hard enough to shake it. The team then went for a night dive off Dreher Island, although the murkiness of the lake limited visibility to several feet under water. A “Deep Trekker” camera was later sent underwater, loosing its video feed at one point, but later resuming it to capture a blurry image of something large moving through the water. An expert later consulted by the team regarded the image captured to be that of a large sturgeon.
Some eyewitnesses reported having seen the Lake Murray beast over the years, with those who maintain having seen it in an incident about two years ago describing it as definitely not looking like an eel or a sturgeon…so as with so many similar cases, the Lake Murray Monster remains elusive, and the current investigation report was inconclusive…
Categories: animals, aquatic, cryptozoology, scalies, television, unexplained, unidentified
Tags: Haunted Highway, Lake Murray beast, Loch Ness monster cousins
Comments: 2 Comments
October 18, 2013
– – I’m thankful for hairy hominids, without which this blog might soon expire from starvation. And so, good readers, if you can suffer one more yeti theory, we offer yet another explanation being advanced: the yeti is a type of previously-unknown, hybrid bear.
British researcher Bryan Sykes, a human geneticist at Oxford, has analyzed hairs from two alleged yetis, sequenced their DNA, and found a 100% match with a DNA sample from the jaw of an ancient polar bear. Now Sykes is not saying that there are ancient polar bears wandering around in the Himalayas, but only that there could be a subspecies of brown bear in the High Himalayas descended from the bear that was the ancestor to the polar bear. The Yeti accordingly may be a hybrid descended from two species of bear, an extinct polar bear and a closely related brown bear.
Such a species of bear might behave differently from other known bears, possibly being more dangerous, aggressive, or bipedal…and this Abominable Snowman apparently has a unique ability to cause any video recording device to go out of focus…
Categories: animals, anomalies, controversial, creature features, cryptozoology, research, unexplained, unidentified
Tags: Abominable Snowman, Yeti
Comments: 2 Comments
October 4, 2013
– – A Texas-based research group led by veterinarian Dr. Melba Ketchum, The Sasquatch Genome Project, is claiming that Bigfoot is real, and that they have tissue samples and video evidence to support their claim. A report by the group claims that Sasquatch is a relatively new species arising from a female Homo sapiens and an unknown male primate that linked up about 15,000 years ago.
Blood and hair samples have been released by the group which claims that they are unlike any known creature. A 19-second video also released by the team reportedly shows a sleeping juvenile Bigfoot in Kentucky filmed in 2005. (Pictured: a supposed Sasquatch siesta)
Mainstream science, however, has greeted the report skeptically. Todd Disotell, a professor at the Department of Anthropology at NYU, has termed the research nonsense that is unscientifically reported and has not been subjected to peer review. Previous arguments against Ketchum’s findings include allegations of possible contamination of her samples by the collectors, either accidental or intentional.
And so, the dispute and contention are likely to rage on…
Categories: animals, anomalies, controversial, cryptozoology, mysteries, unexplained
Tags: Bigfoot, cryptids, Sasquatch Genome Project
Comments: 3 Comments
July 17, 2013
— As an episode of the Weird or What series hosted by William Shatner would remind us (Aliens Walk Among Us), some candidates for new and unknown species have been nothing more than the products of creative taxidermy, fueled by the simple public desire to believe. The desire to believe is an incredibly powerful thing, intoxicating and seductive. If we are not careful, that desire can cause us to suspend reason and logic.
I would like to believe in monsters. They are intriguing, can be romantic, and give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside! Existentially, we all ask, “Is that all there is?” Assuming the existence of monsters can give many of us the intangible thing that we seek, the hope that there is something more beyond the evidence of our senses. Feeding the public desire and demand for monsters has been a lucrative occupation for centuries, leading in the era of P.T. Barnum to the manufacture of the Fiji Mermaid, a sewn-together linkage of a monkey’s upper body with the lower body of a large fish. In far more recent times, the Metepec Creature served a similar function, with the skinned and otherwise altered remains of a spider monkey or similar primate masquerading as an unknown species or alien.
To show the relative ease of creating an otherworldly-appearing corpse, a taxidermist on the Weird or What Show took a skinned squirrel and paired it to the skull of a small primate which had been additionally modified to make it appear even more human-like. The results were both stomach-churning and disquieting, looking as convincing as many specimens submitted as “proof”of unknown life or aliens. Dare to believe, but never forsake science and credibility. Occam’s Razor is a good litmus test; the simplest explanation is usually the correct one…
Categories: bizarre, controversial, cryptozoology, fantasy, furry, mysteries, strange, weird
Tags: Fiji mermaid, Metepec creature, Weird or What
Comments: 2 Comments
July 4, 2013
– – The Monsters and Mysteries in America series on the Destination America channel has proven to be a substitute for those of us who miss such shows as MonsterQuest, and featured a segment on the Flathead Lake Monster, a cryptic creature reported to be living deep within Flathead Lake in the state of Montana in the United States. The life form is said to resemble the Loch Ness Monster, with reported sightings dating back to at least 1889. At that time, a steamboat operating on the lake spotted a “log” which later turned out to be a “whale-like” creature as they approached it. With a mentality common then as now, a passenger fired at the creature which wisely disappeared.
There have been 97 sightings of the creature reported since the late 1800’s, with eyewitnesses including reliable and reputable people such as doctors and lawyers. Many report seeing a dark, eel-like creature with black eyes that some equate to the Loch Ness Monster and others describe as resembling a giant sturgeon. At 27.3 miles long and 15.5 miles wide, Flathead Lake is actually a remnant of a massive inland sea which covered much of the region during the last interglacial, some 13,000 years ago…
Categories: animals, aquatic, cryptozoology, television, unexplained, unidentified
Tags: Flathead Lake Monster, Monsters in America
Comments: 2 Comments
June 1, 2013
– – Even in the rarified world of cryptozoology, consideration of mermaids has fallen into the realm of the really far out there stuff, to be greeted perhaps with rolling of the eyes and snide remarks. Most likely this is because treatment of the very topic of mermaids/mermen has been tainted by embodiment in fairy tales and the Disney treatment in popular culture; we are inclined to think of mermaids as merchandised items, as plastic toys carried about and loved by small girls. If we think of mermaids and mermen as being less like My Little Pony collectables, we’re finally at a stage where we can give the topic more serious consideration.
Specials on the Animal Planet network have sparked new treatments of the mermaid topic, complete with the ambiguous videos and reported missing body parts, allegations that we’ve come to associate with Bigfoot investigations. There’s even a linkage of sorts in that mermaids and mermen are speculated to be a kind of “water ape” that has evolved back to an aquatic existence from a previous incarnation on dry land.
First there was Mermaids: The Body Found airing in May 2012, a docu-fiction including the tantalizing tale of inexplicable body parts brought forth from the stomach of a Great White shark on the South African shore that matched no other known species, body parts that represented perhaps 30% of a complete individual possessing mermaid characteristics, including morphological adaptations such as hands rather than fins, and an upright hip bone posture. While little of the skull of the specimen remained, reconstruction from what was present suggested the capacity for echolocation as is seen in aquatic mammals such as dolphins. Researchers working with the remains had them as well as their research confiscated as they were about to return to the United States, or so alleges a reputed former NOAA scientist.
Remaining, however, are recordings of mysterious underwater noises coming from an unknown source which resembles a 1997 sound recording called the “bloop.” This transmission contains known whale and dolphin sounds together with more sophisticated sounds of an unknown creature speculated to be communicating with the cetaceans. There are also a number of disputed videos, including one reportedly taken by a boy on a cell phone camera following a mass whale beaching in 2007. The images show in addition to whale carcasses and debris a still living humanoid-like creature that the boy maintains to have been a mermaid or merman…
For the record, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued a statement denying the existence of mermaids or other aquatic humanoids. Animal Planet has stated that the mermaid shows are not factual, and should be considered entertainment only; the shows are essentially science fiction, with some real events and speculative scientific theory incorporated. While mermaids may be all wet, the ratings amassed by Mermaids: The New Evidence are quite real, with 3.6 million viewers drawn, making the show the most viewed telecast on Animal Planet ever…
Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, aquatic, controversial, cryptozoology, strange, television, unexplained
Tags: mermaids and mermen
Comments: 2 Comments
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