Cryptotourism

Lost World Is Coming

Look what Peter von Puttkamer is bringing to Discovery HD Theater on December 14th, on Animal Planet, December 10th and 17th, 2006, and in Canada on OLN Cable, December 17th, 2006: The Real Lost World. Peter is the director of the successful 2002 series, Monster Hunters, and my all-time favorite documentary about the quest, Sasquatch Odyssey: The Hunt for Bigfoot. This image of the movie poster may be clicked on to enlarge. Of the individuals highlighted on the poster, I only know Dean Harrison, recently of Australia, who has been a helpful and good research associate of mine. Anyone know [...]

Where is Cassie?

I look forward to seeing folks at the closing reception at Bates’s exhibition “Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale,” on October 7th. In the meantime, I will be pondering why it has been so many years since anyone has seen Cassie, the Casco Bay Sea Serpent. Cassie, the local name I coined long ago in a magazine to characterize these cryptids seen near Portland, Maine, was bestowed in the same tradition that many freshwater and marine creature monikers are given – with passion, humor, and a nod to Nessie. As it turns out, of course, Portland is not alone in [...]

Loh Sends Greetings

Click on the above image for a full-sized version of Peter Loh’s Happy Birthday Greetings to Cryptomundo!

The Search for Giant Woodpeckers

Are folks still interested in the search for the world’s biggest woodpeckers, the Ivory-billed and the Imperial Woodpeckers? According to reports being published on September 26, 2006, and summarized in the Mobile, Alabama Press-Register, a haven for ivory-billed woodpeckers has been discovered in Florida. Auburn University researchers published evidence today of what some are describing as an ivory-bill woodpecker “Shangri-La” in the Florida Panhandle, a couple of hours east of Mobile. Researchers said they’ve had 13 sightings of the ivory bill, long thought to be extinct, and have recorded some 300 distinctive calls and sounds associated with the giant woodpecker, [...]

Yeti Scholar On Downed Helicopter

A helicopter full of the intelligentsia of Nepal’s Himalayan conservation and forest management has been apparently found. Radio contact with the craft was lost on Saturday, September 23, 2006, while it was in a remote mountain area of Nepal, 190 miles (305km) east of the capital, according to Reuters. I note that several of the people on the copter may have had dealings with the search for the Yeti or Abominable Snowmen in the region. One individual, specifically, had been an outspoken advocate of the Yeti in recent years. Nepali environmentalist Mingma Norbu Sherpa (above and below), who did the [...]

Skeptic Dogs Maine Mutant

Cryptomundo reader and Skeptical Inquirer managing editor Ben Radford has taken on the “Maine Mutant” in a SI column published on Sunday, September 24, 2006. Click on image for full-size version Photograph by Michelle O’Donnell. Used by permission. In “Mystery Monster Dogs Maine” Radford overviews the story, getting all the facts right, more so than most retellings of the events. He even quotes me correctly: When Maine monster hunter Loren Coleman was shown a photo of the creature on Aug. 13, he stated, “This is a dog, probably a feral dog or a hybrid, but a dog.” Then Radford mentions [...]