Artifacts

Update: What-Is-It Solved

Please click on this image for a larger view of this thing. As noted here yesterday, the above body is on display as a “Chupacabras” in Dave’s Pawn Shop in downtown El Paso, Texas. The origins of the What-Is-It? that rests comfortably in that pawn shop has been solved. It is a creative taxidermy piece produced by Sarina Brewer, an artist well-known for her rogue creations. The following photographs, from her Custom Creature Taxidermy website, is her “Chupacabra” (sic), showing all its angles. Thanks to research conducted by a Cryptomundo reader Robert Dolan, in revealing this obvious connection. Sarina Brewer [...]

Jeb’s Cryptids of Mardi Gras

One of the themes this year at Mardi Gras is “Legends and Lore of the Deep,” and so naturally cryptozoology is represented. Jeb Card has taken some great photos of some of the cz-themed floats, which he shares. (That specific theme is for Proteus, one of the over a dozen krewes, which are individual crews or communities of people who design, build, and people the floats.) This is incredibly good stuff, these photos of his “Cryptids of Mardi Gras.” See more here. Thanks to Jeb for sharing these with me overnight. Hope Jeb and all the folks are having fun [...]

American Dime Museum Closes – Part II

Please see Part I for more details on the closing and upcoming auction of the American Dime Museum; please click here. Now come enter the museum, via photographs from the American Dime Museum, Barbara Matteson, and Brian at acurse.com. You are walking up to the brick building, come inside, meet your host, and begin to look at the wonders. The images are given uncaptioned to recreate the feel of the tour, in which the attendees were required to do more research, scratch their heads, and walk away pondering. In the end, remember, for our purposes, these are all gaffs, creations [...]

American Dime Museum Closes – Part I

We’re losing another great piece of Baltimore personality. It was esoteric and great and hilarious and very fitting for this city. Maybe it was just too good to be accepted by enough people. – John Waters, Baltimore filmmaker and director of Pink Flamingos Photo credit: Barbara Matteson. A tradition eight years in the making based on wonders, gaffs, and sideshow fakery going back hundreds of years is closing. The American Dime Museum first opened in Baltimore in 1999, but has gone the way of many such sites. The cost of keeping it open has become too much. It is no [...]

The Great Days of Yeti Hunting

Harry Trumbore’s drawing of a Yeti. Ask yourself, where are all the great Yeti hunters from the 1950s? Take for example, what is Peter Byrne, the leader of the Tom Slick expeditions of the 1950s, up to these days? Byrne is often remembered, for example, online at such sites as The Anomalist and Wikipedia, with regard to his involvement with the late actor Jimmy Stewart and the Pangboche Hand. My favorable overview of Byrne’s Yeti-related life appeared in Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology. The book contains an updated version of what I had previously written about Byrne and [...]