Cryptozoologists

New Dover Demon Sighting?

What’s up with this? Has there been a new sighting of the Dover Demon? I’ve mentioned the little guy lately here, because the Boston Globe did a new update around Halloween of last year and we are creeping up on Year #30. Also, over Christmas, I highlighted one of the figurines (example below), as they are reflective of how important the Dover Demon remains in Japan today. Nevertheless, a new sighting now is unexpected. But look what just showed up online: Last seen Saturday, February 3rd, 2007, in Westwood, Mass. behind the parking lot at Xaverian Brothers High School. Unsigned [...]

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 [...]

What Are People Thinking?

I was gone most of yesterday, on the road, and returned very late last night. Yes, I don’t live here in front of this screen. I came back to find an email inbox filled with the strangest messages. Two topics with similar themes popped out. First, one group was about someone in the field who had put a “bounty” on me despite the fact that what this person was disturbed about had nothing to do with me, wasn’t posted by me, and the foundation for any concern was not coming from me. But since it was here on Cryptomundo, I [...]

FeeJee Mermaids & Other Gaffs

The easiest pseudocryptozoological exhibition items to have, of course, are often the gaffs and hoaxes. Among those in most cabinets of curiosities are the Feejee mermaids and the furred trouts, both taxidermy fakes. I have my share. I use them to let people know these objects are often shown as “almost real” specimens. Most honest sideshow owners displaying them often merely only ask “What is It?” or “Is it Real?” But slowly the drift has been, perhaps due to eBay, for people to present these items as cryptozoological, from “unknown animals.” For cryptozoologists, we need to be aware of this [...]

Cryptozoology: First Use?

Cryptozoology, as you know, means “the study of hidden animals.” In 1955, Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans wrote a groundbreaking book in French, a now classic opus entitled (in English) On the Track of Unknown Animals. But in the 1955 French and the 1958 English editions, you will not find the word “cryptozoology,” in any language. The first (known) published use of the word “cryptozoology” in French, occurred in 1959 in a book by wildlife biologist Lucien Blancou, dedicated to “Bernard Heuvelmans, master of cryptozoology.” In 1961, Ivan T. Sanderson’s Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life was first published. Sanderson’s book [...]