Archive for the ‘cryptozoology’ category

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“Beast Legends” Is Upon Us!

September 9, 2010

– – You gotta give the Syfy channel credit for trying to  please us, and Beast Legends starting September 9th at 10:00 in my area just might be the ticket!  Billed as an “investigative adventure series,” Legends features a team of a globetrotting animal doctor, a Harvard professor of evolutionary biology, a gifted illustrator, and a mythology maven as they explore the truth behind some of the world’s most renowned creatures.  Your payoff will be a life-like computer-generated model of the creature investigated depicted living in the real world at the end of each show, kinda like the mortal combat simulations shown at the end of Deadliest Warrior matchings.

The show will follow season four of Destination Truth, which could make Thursday night quite a draw on Syfy for our types!- –All hail the mighty Kraken!

Categories: anthropomorphic, creature features, cryptozoology, furry, imaginary animals, mysteries, television, unexplained, unidentified, weird
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Raystown Ray…

August 19, 2010

– – Pennsylvania’s Raystown Lake in Huntingdon County boasts its own unidentified aquatic creature, with boaters describing sudden water turbulence and old photos showing large shadowy figures just below the surface…

Now Raystown Lake spans about 30 miles and reaches depths of over 185 feet, so there’s plenty of room for a potential cryptid to hide.   Fact or Faked:  Paranormal Files recently did a segment on the creature that included eyewitness accounts, experiments, a sonar run, and a diving search.   Something was seen in the water of considerable size, while visibility was poor and the investigation was inconclusive;  investigators felt that there was something in the water, but that it remained unexplained.- -What could more true, or safer to say?  We’ve heard this kinda thing many times before…

The creature if it exists is felt to be vegetarian, and to display behaviors and feeding habits similar to a manatee.  I personally have been on Raystown Lake, and unfortunately saw nothing…


Categories: animal occurrences, cryptozoology, furry, television, unexplained, unidentified
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Fact or Faked?

August 1, 2010

– – For  those of you hungry for a MonsterQuest fix, Syfy’s new show Fact or Faked:  Paranormal Files may offer you an alternative.  The show has been described as what Fox Mulder might have done after leaving the X-Files; in fact, the show features former FBI agent Ben Hansen.  Adding to the diversified investigative team is a scientist, a journalist, an effects specialist, a photography expert, and a stunt expert who explore video submissions and famous paranormal footage to determine which can be validated or debunked through experimentation.

Topics investigated are a mixed bag that include UFO’s, ghosts, cryptids, and unexplained phenomenon.  A lot of grainy videos are screened by the team in a “situation room” to weed out the obvious fakes and determine which cases are worthy of further investigation.  While it’s too early to tell if this series will be a hit, if you liked Ghost Hunters, Paranormal State, and Destination Truth, you’ll probably like this one.   Fact or Faked is a banquet, so take what you like, and leave the rest of it lying on the buffet table…we think it merits a look!

Categories: aliens, anomalies, creature features, cryptozoology, strange happenings, unexplained, unidentified, weird
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The Giant Moa…

July 31, 2010

– – The second half of a 2010 Destination Truth episode focused on the Giant Moa, an extinct flightless bird native to New Zealand that was  hunted to extinction in the 1500’s.  There were twelve species of moa, the largest of which stood up to twelve feet tall!   Now this big bird wasn’t “Big Bird” but could easily kill the Sesame Street specimen; the giant moa had colorful feathers and three-toed taloned feet with which it could conceivably disembowel hunters.  Eyewitness sightings of giant moa have occurred in remote locations of New Zealand, however, despite their presumed extinction, giving grounds for a Destination Truth investigation.

Josh Gates and his team rummaged around after dark in those remote locations, setting up camera traps and hunting about for evidence of these giant avians.  The  cameras yielded nothing save blurry images, and investigation found bones, a feather, and footprints.  The bones turned out to be mammalian, the feather was from a rare bird but not a moa, and the footprint castings could not be identified.

So once again, an extinct species must be presumed to be extinct, since as it was commented it’s hard to keep a twelve foot bird off the radar!   How sad, however, that the human race with their boom sticks eradicated this species…


Categories: animals, cryptozoology, extinct species, television
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Chupacabra, Once More…

July 15, 2010

– – Once again a supposed chupacabra has reared his ugly head, again in Texas.  In Hood County, an animal control officer shot and killed in an old barn an unsightly creature described as having deer-like ears, big teeth, and pinkish skin that was unlike anything he had seen before. A few days later and within ten miles, a rancher also shot and killed another of the bizarre creatures, leading some to speculate that there were a pack of them.

Hood County Animal Control has sent one of the deceased creatures to Texas A&M for DNA testing, but don’t bet the rent on it being a chupacabra.   Until test results are in, doctors have only said that it’s some kind of coyote hybrid…very possibly with mange, I might add…

Categories: animals, anomalies, cryptozoology, furry, unexplained, unidentified, weird
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Blond Bigfoot?

June 20, 2010

– – A North Carolina man residing on a mountain in Casar reports having repeatedly encountered a ten-foot-tall yellow haired bigfoot with six fingers on his property.  The beast is reported to have looked like a giant ape with a man’s face, and it made whistling sounds.  It approached the man’s dogs and somehow became wrapped up in their chains, at which point the man poked the animal with a stick and rough-talked the creature before it left his property; no one likes trash talk, after all.   The man actually called 911 to ask if there would be a problem if he later found it necessary to shoot the beast!   As often occurs in such cases, there is no physical evidence or video/photograph of the reported cryptid.

The incident is not without area precedent, however.   In the 1970’s an unknown creature dubbed “Knobby” was often spotted in the same rural area, and was held responsible for killing chickens and other animals…


Categories: animals, cryptozoology, mysteries, strange happenings, unidentified, weird
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Summer Rerun Season…

May 28, 2010

– – When MonsterQuest has a re-run marathon fest, I can usually tell by the number of renewed hits that I get on my old posts on past episodes of The Quest. It’s the good episodes that get the hits…like myself, most people aren’t as interested in installments on wild dogs, rats, or bees.

So mundane and unexciting were some of these episodes, in fact, that we can bring you this picture of a MonsterQuest reject…in fact, he might have been more interesting than some of the episodes that aired!


Categories: animals, anomalies, creature features, cryptozoology, furry, television
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Giving the Devil His Due…

May 6, 2010

– – Stories of the Jersey Devil have been in oral circulation since 1735, making it possibly the oldest reported “monster” in America.  Two schools of thought exist about the creature, one holding that it is truly supernatural…the “son of the devil,” as suggested by the original Mother Leeds account.  A second explanation for the creature holds that it is some sort of mutated animal that has not yet been identified by science.  Supporting this latter contention is the fact that the Pine Barrens location reported as the Devil’s stomping grounds has been known to have produced genetic malformations in reptiles and mammals, including humans, possibly due to heavy metal or other mineral deposits. Some abnormalities afflicting animals in this location have included odd colorations, extra appendages, and even extra heads.

Native Americans in petroglyphs, some dating back thousands of years, depicted an entity that has reptilian features.  In spite of this and the extensive oral history, the Jersey Devil has been treated satirically, making many reluctant to step forward with their beliefs due to fear of ridicule.  More serious study and treatment of the Jersey Devil may be fostered by a recently opened exhibit at the Paranormal Museum in Asbury Park, N.J. that features a variety of artifacts, including reproductions of a supposed Jersey Devil skull, drawings, and other artifacts.

Despite the lack of hard evidence, the Pinelands area of New Jersey covers more than a million acres…a perfect environment for an unknown animal to hide in!

Categories: creature features, cryptozoology, furry, unexplained
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–Oriental Yeti?

April 9, 2010

– – Well, isn’t this a strange and sorry looking critter?- –Discovered in a remote wooded area in Sichuan Province in China, this mysterious hairless creature dubbed an “oriental yeti” will undergo DNA testing.

“It looks like a bear but it doesn’t have any fur and it has a tail like a kangaroo,” said one of the hunters who trapped the unidentified beast after locals reported a bear sighting…but this ain’t no bear!  “It also does not sound like a bear…it has a voice like a cat and it is calling all the time–perhaps it is looking for the rest of its kind or maybe its the last one,” added the hunter, Lu Chin.

So what is this animal?–Pending the DNA testing to be performed in Beijing, one cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman, thinks that it is a kind of civet, a small carnivorous mammal akin to the mongoose.   The Asian palm or Himalayan palm civet are regarded as the most likely possibilities.  As for the creature’s lack of fur, Coleman thinks that it has mange, a skin disease caused by mites.

While it is anticipated that DNA tests will show that the finding is “in no way anything extraordinary,”  this guy looks like he could use some TLC in addition to the fur!



Categories: animal oddities, animals, cryptozoology, furry, mysteries, rare animal, unidentified
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“America’s Wolfman” on MonsterQuest

March 25, 2010

– – The America’s Wolfman episode of MonsterQuest promised much but delivered little.   It was, at any rate, not another feral dogs or killer bees episode. Described as being a husky 7-7-1/2 feet tall with a large head, dark hair, and pointed ears, the American Wolfman seen in the midwest walks on his hind legs, has a foul odor, and uses his forepaws like hands.

Also known as the Michigan Dogman (similar but not to be confused with the Wisconsin Dogman),  the creature was supposedly revealed on the Gable Film acquired in 2006 with the backstory of having been originally made in the 1970’s and acquired at an estate sale.   The Gable Film was later revealed to be a hoax staged by a family.  A sequel, Gable 2, followed in 2008 and detailed a police investigation of the first film.

In its usual dutiful manner, MonsterQuest in this episode sent its team to the Manistee Forest area in Michigan where sightings have occurred, and camera traps were set revealing footage of deer and other animals suitable as a food source for a wolf and coyote population. Footprints were also found which were judged to be a member of the dog family, specifically a wolf.   Some experts regard the creature to be a misidentified timber wolf, or just an unusually big wolf…right!

Eyewitness accounts related included a fall of 1979 hunting encounter when a hunter discerned a large creature who moved when he did.  In another incident in 1987 in Michigan, claw and puncture marks as well as blood and slobber were found on a cabin with canine footprints in the area.  Other accounts are numerous, and date back to Native American folklore.

Does the Michigan Dogman exist?- -As the episode concluded, “Who’s to say?  It doesn’t want to be seen.” We’ve heard this all repeatedly before…

…but I still like the big guy!

Categories: animal oddities, animals, anomalies, anthropomorphic, cryptozoology, furry, mysteries, rare animal, strange happenings, television, unexplained, unidentified
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