Heinrich Harrer in Tibet. I got to first thinking about Nazis, Tibet, and Yeti, three years ago, when I heard that famed mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, 93, died on January 7, 2005. The entire story does feel like it is straight out of Indiana Jones, of course. Movies are often a point of reference, needless to say. Harrer was portrayed by Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet, a 1997 movie based on Harrer’s 1953 nonfiction memoir with the same title. But sometimes the movies leave out the best parts. Harrer’s interest in what today we mostly know as the lore [...]
Loren Coleman
Nazi Raccoons
In 1934, Hermann Goering, then head of the Reich Forestry Office, gave permission for the release of a pair of common American raccoons (Procyon lotor) into the German wilderness to enrich the fauna. It has resulted in today’s furry blitzkrieg. Due to the recent discussions here of raccoons in the Yucatan and escaped pet raccoons taking over Japan, I share revelant historical and contemporary highlights from a Deutsche Welle article about “Nazi” raccoons. The link to the complete news item is at the end of this detailed overview of this alien invasion. They’re actually American but feel right at home [...]
Four New Geckos Discovered
United Press International is crediting the Vietnam News Agency with reporting from Long Xuyen, Vietnam, that herpetologists have discovered four new species of geckos in isolated mountains and islands in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. L. Lee Grismer with La Sierra University in the United States and Ngo Van Tri from Vietnam’s Institute of Tropical Biology published their 2007 findings in the journal Herpetologica. The reptiles are of the genus Cnemaspis and have the species names caudanivea, auranticopes, nuicamensis and tucdupensis. The geckos’ length ranges from about 4-6 inches from head to tail. The first gecko of this species in [...]
New Shrub Frog Discovered
The tiny shrub frog (Philautus ochlandrae) lives in bamboo hollows. This new species of shrub frog from the Western Ghats adds its name to the growing list of frogs discovered recently. The latest is a tiny oriental shrub frog, named Philautus ochlandrae, discovered in the cool evergreen forests of the Kakkayam Reserve Forest in Kerala, India. The squat little amphibian does not grow beyond 2.5 cm, has a short rounded snout and protruding eyes with striking golden yellow markings. With this, the number of frog species discovered in the last seven years in India stands at 25. The discovery was [...]
New Alux Sighting
Alux hominids are Proto-Pygmies. The Aluxob (plural Maya) are seen in the Yucatan, Mexico, mostly by the Mayans, but sometimes by Mexicans and United States tourists, quite regularly. People in the Yucatan see the Aluxob, and when I was there in the 1980s, I was able to interview informants (mostly Mayans) who had firsthand sightings. In my 1985 book, Curious Encounters, I devoted a chapter to the lore, legends, and legacy of these Little People in that corner of the world. Things do not seem to have changed there. In one recent case, Dan Gannon, the moderator of an anthropological [...]
What Is The Future Image of Bigfoot?
What is in store for the next twenty years of Bigfoot? What visual imagery does the next generation have in mind for Bigfoot? What can we learn from the past recent history of the appearances of Sasquatch about the future look of the hairy hominoids? Twenty years ago, one movie changed the image of Bigfoot. During the previous twenty years, from 1967 through 1987, the psychological and visual Bigfoot was the one seen in the Patterson-Gimlin footage, that of a zaftig (indeed, quite zaftik) female Bigfoot walking along a sandbar in the forest. From 1987 through today, while the P-G [...]
New Moray Eel Surprise Discovery
According to Zootaxa (Smith et al., 2008), a new species of moray eel, Gymnothorax baranesi has been discovered in the most surprising of locations: in relatively shallow water in front of a major marine laboratory. This finding of the new species took place in a well-studied area in front of the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences of Eilat (IUI). These specimens were collected from a depth of approximately 200 metres off Eilat, in the northern Red Sea. They could not be identified with any known species. It indicates to those who found it how much we still have to learn [...]
New Mystery Panther Photo
The most frequently and quietly discussed cryptids in America are the mystery cats, the phantom felines, the so-called “Black Panthers” of legend and lore. Many people say they see them, so much so they are taken for granted in many parts of the country. While most photographs of “black cats” taken across fields turn out to be nothing more than long-distance pictures of the neighborhood tom-cats, once in a blue moon I’m shown a photograph that has me wondering. This week one such image came my way. Please see the attached pdf photograph file which shows an apparent black panther. [...]
Dhaliwal: “We Yelled & Waved At Tiger.”
South Africa’s News 24, via reports from San Francisco, shared the following summary late on January 18, 2008. One of the three victims of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted standing atop a railing of the big cat enclosure and yelling and waving at the animal that would later maul them, killing his friend, police said in court documents. Paul Dhaliwal, 19, told the father of Carlos Sousa Jr, 17, who was killed, that the three yelled and waved at the tiger but insisted they never threw anything into its pen to provoke the cat, according [...]
Cloverfield Cellphotos the Destruction of NYC
What are we to make of this film, Cloverfield, which opens January 18, 2008? What is the monster? Is it the monster of the id or a cryptid? Is this MySpace horror or YouTube cryptofiction run amok? Certainly people have had fun for a few months trying to figure it out (see sample video solutions below). What is this movie really all about? A cellphone camera version of “Blair Witch Horror” meets “Godzilla,” with a bit of “Planet of the Apes” thrown in, regarding the Statue of Liberty. And how about, jeez, those trailers? Some people love them, some people [...]
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