Cryptozoologists

Name the Mystery Fish

Can you identify this mystery fish found on an old postcard? (Click on image to see full size version) Is there a Cryptomundo reader out there that can help? The men in the picture look like military servicemen. The surroundings look like this photograph was taken on a beach or island. The fish appears to be about six feet long (notice the yard or meter stick lying next to it). But where are the fins on this cryptid (or even a tail)? What is it? Send in a comment if you know what this cryptid fish might be. Added note: [...]

Editors and Thunderbirds

Editors: Expand Your Thunderbird Awareness An Illinois newspaper’s answer columnist Ms. Brenda Story attempts to tackle a cryptozoological question in her "Hotline" column on November 28th, with the standard terrible results. Peoria, Illinois Journal-Star’s Ms. Story was asked by a reader if she remembers the "story circulating around the Peoria area about a ‘giant bird’ that was spotted by several people around the area" in the 1970s. "My co-workers all think that I have lost my mind as they don’t recall anything like that," complained the reader. It is amazing how short memories can be. Ms. Story notes she "checked [...]

Mothman Dreams

Recently on the program, Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, I appeared to discuss Mothman. Lots of folks called in with questions and their sightings. Interest remains high in the 1966-1967 elements of the story of John A. Keel’s investigations in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, of a giant flying creature. Today the accounts are associated with all kinds of elements of occultism, demonology, and ufology, mostly due to how Keel told the tale. But cryptozoology underlies the initial reports, of course. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how fiction and the facts have become mixed and confused in the Mothman chronicles. [...]

Thanksgiving CZ Style

"America goes cryptozoology crazy" So asked Wired News, through an introspective look in Mark Baard’s article, in which he wrote the simple but true words, "It’s a hot topic at the moment." Look back to just a year ago, to the discovery of the "hobbits" of Flores Islands, as the media called them, when Henry Gee, the editor of Nature wrote in October 2004: “The discovery of Homo floresiensis makes it much more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures are founded on grains of truth. In the light of the Flores skeleton, a recent initiative to scour central [...]

Maine’s Dog Killer cont.

Investigative reporter Mark LaFlamme continues his inquiries into Maine’s mystery beast with a new article published in the November 18, 2005, Lewiston Sun-Journal. Widespread interest and comments have been generated through LaFlamme’s initial article which was then mentioned in my earlier blog here, and that Cryptomundo comment was noted in David Pescovitz’s Boing Boing column. Today, reporter LaFlamme zeroes in on the probable best candidates for the central Maine dog killer and attacker, issuing from comments we all are now receiving. After relating that the dog "Buddy" has happily been reunited with its owners, Mark LaFlamme comments on the cryptid [...]

Skeptical Monster Hunting

Dinah Voyles Pulver, the environment writer at the Daytona Beach News Journal has a good overview of the debunking of "sea monster" beachings at Tasmania, Bermuda, Nantucket and Chile. All were cetaceans, of course. She also lumps in the nearby 1896 St. Augustine beaching, as a whale too, but my emails with Roy Mackal tell me there may a surprise on the horizon about that one, in a new analysis being conducted. Could it be a giant octopus, after all? Also highlighted by Pulver is the work of cryptozoologist "Charles Paxton, a researcher with the wildlife population assessment department at [...]

Richard Greenwell (1942-2005)

An important figure in formalizing the organizational structure and tenets of cryptozoology, Richard Greenwell, 1942-2005, has died. J. Richard Greenwell, 63, cofounder of the International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC), died Tuesday night, November 1, 2005, shortly before 8 p.m. of cancer. He passed quickly and peacefully while surrounded by family in his home in Tucson, Arizona. On January 8-9, 1982, Greenwell, at the suggestion of Jerome Clark, along with Dr. George Zug at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D. C. and Dr. Roy Mackal at the University of Chicago, embarked on the creation of the first formal scientific organization for [...]