Cryptofiction

Beyond Loch Ness And Beyond

When Beyond Loch Ness was first broadcast on Sci Fi Channel on January 5, 2008, I didn’t get a chance to watch it. Tonight, from 7-9 PM Eastern, I viewed the film. It was my first chance to see this one. But then, I had to. After all, I am a cryptozoologist. The body count was ten people, one coyote, and several so-called “Nessies.” The experience was your typical cable B-movie sci-fi fare. The plot wasn’t too bad for a revenge film, the acting was first rate, and the special effects were mostly good. The creatures (a “60-foot plesiosaur mother” [...]

Pinky Expedition: Monster Considerations

A major conclusion from my “Pinky Expedition” is the same one that I have found over and over again. There are no simple answers to the mysteries of monsters in our midst. Looking at other “cryptids,” additionally, we have to consider the other pieces of the puzzle. The long-term sightings of strange creatures from the St. Johns River, Lake Monroe, and surrounding areas, from the 19th century, during the mid-20th century, and at other times, appear to involve many varied cryptids. Bipedal dinosaurs, sauropods, traditional long-necks, and big blobs in the water have all been descriptions for the St. Johns [...]

10,000 BC and Terror Birds

If you haven’t seen 10,000 BC, I highly recommend you give it a second chance for your weekend viewing before it leaves the big screen. I find it discouraging that one of the major movie criticisms being heaped on 10,000 BC is that there was not enough blood and gore, that the slicing and dicing of humans, with full-screen blood spatter, did not fill every scene. What, I must ask, is wrong with old-fashion storytelling? 10,000 BC is a movie that will grow on people as viewers take in what they have in front of them. It is an elegant, [...]

General Guemes Gnome

A little gnome with a pointed cap has been captured on a cellphone digital video camera. With a pointed cap? Where have we all seen gnomes like this before? Two years ago, the 30th anniversary edition of the coffee-table book Gnomes hit the bookstores. It reflects how successful the popular cultural icons of the gnomes pictured on the cover and within that book have become. We are surrounded by gnomes. Gnomes was the product of Rien Poortvliet (1932-1995) and Wil Huygen (1925- ), who supposedly made alleged observations of the local gnome population in Holland. The cryptofictionalization of these beings [...]

Wild Man of The Navidad, Humm?

Felix the Cat & Yeti

Okay, this may be merely a Felix the Cat cartoon, but it also may be one of the worst illustrations of misrepresentations in comic history. This cartoon with Felix the Cat and the Abominable Snowman is from 1958. How many misstatements and mistakes do you see in it? (No, I’m not really upset. I’m just playing along with some kind of mock insult to our cryptozoological legacy.) Some of the errors I caught are: – Abominable Snowmen at the North Pole (the Arctic) – They actually are reported to live in the montane valleys of the Himalaya and cross the [...]

Abominable Snow Rabbit

Take an enjoyable historical break, sit back, and watch this just posted crypto-cartoon from 47 years ago: The Abominable Snow Rabbit is an eight minute 1961 Warner Brothers Looney Tunes theatrical cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. The cartoon was directed by Chuck Jones and co-directed by Maurice Noble, with a story by Tedd Pierce. (For whatever reason, the video version here is six minutes long.) While the cartoon’s title, according to such sources as Wikipedia, allegedly “is taken from the phrase and horror film, The Abominable Snowman,” I must observe that knowledge of the Abominable Snowman was culturally [...]