Artifacts

Yeti Track Photos Sold

As a followup to my earlier blog about the auction of the Shipton-Ward Yeti footprint photographs, the final bids are in. Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz blogs today of the outcome of auction. “This 1951 photograph of a purported Yeti footprint was auctioned off at Christie’s London for £3,500. Eric Earle Shipton took the photograph in the Himalayas,” writes Pescovitz. That amount equals US $7082.25. It is unknown who purchased the set of Yeti photos (as there were four, not just the one famous photograph), at this time. It is worth noting, in typical British wording, they had been “THE PROPERTY [...]

Florida’s Ivory-Bills Photographed

Geoffrey Hill, Scharnagel Professor of Biology at Auburn University and author of Ivorybill Hunters: The Search for Proof in the Florida Panhandle told reporter Donathan Prater of the Opelika Auburn News that he has obtained three types of evidence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis): audio, video, and photographic. After getting a small grant, Hill and several of his colleagues traveled to the Florida Panhandle in January 2007. There, they set up listening stations and remote cameras, and indeed, did record the distinctive double-knocking sound and Kent calls the Ivory-billed Woodpecker makes. While in Florida, Hill and his colleagues were able [...]

New Moa Photos For Sale

Editorial Commentary Is cryptozoology the newest big time marketable niche to be discovered or exploited? It appears to be so. There’s the Shipton Yeti footprints photographs auction that I’m discussing at Cryptomundo also today, and now this business of someone selling new photographs of moa tracks and the pictures of the animals themselves. I think it’s one thing to sell off historical items (even though I have reservations about these disappearing into private collections). But these alleged moa discoveries have not even been properly noted and discussed, examined and explored for their possible value to the knowledge base of what [...]

For Sale: Yeti History

Eric Shipton, above, (August 1, 1907 – March 28, 1977), has a name that will live on forever within cryptozoology, in conjuction with the famed “1951 Shipton Yeti footprints photos.” Shipton found these tracks during his exploratory 1951 expedition in which he and his team worked out the now famous route over the Khumbu Glacier to assault Mount Everest. I thought the death on October 7, 2005, of Michael Ward, 80, closed a living chapter of that remarkable event and soon thereafter, more might be heard from Ward’s or Shipton’s estates. Ward was the medical doctor, along with Eric Shipton, [...]

Monster Weekend Report

Newcastle, UK: The home of the infamous Lambton Worm, known for its Curse and the Lambton Worm song. Journalist Tim Chapman shares his straight-from-the-scene report on the September 1-2, 2007, “Monster Weekend” in Newcastle, United Kingdom. With no official Fortean Times UnConvention this year (and, as I understand it, little prospect of one in the foreseeable future), FT stalwart Ian Simmons assumed the task of organising a partial substitute. Conveniently, Ian holds a senior job at the ‘Centre for Life’ science museum in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which just happened to be hosting a ‘Myths & Monsters’ exhibition on loan from London’s Natural [...]