Cryptozoology

The Discovery of the Hobbit Arrives in Australia

Please click on the book cover above for a fuller-sized version. Professor Mike Morwood, Archaeology, University of New England, Australia, contacted me tonight to let me know that Random House (Australia) has published his new book on Homo floresiensis. The name of the book is The Discovery of the Hobbit: The Scientific Breakthrough that Changed the Face of Human History. Morwood’s book is with Penny van Oosterzee, who is one of Australia’s best science writers, and is the recipient of the 1997 Eureka Science Book Prize for her book Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line. She is most-remembered for her [...]

What Is It?

What is it? This was published on November 14, 2006, in Victoria, Australia’s South Gippsland Sentinel Times. This thing was caught off the extreme southern coast of Australia. South Gippsland is a fertile agricultural area renowned for its prime cattle and dairy produce as well as a commercial fishing industry. Wonthaggi is located 132 kms southeast of Melbourne via the South Gippsland and Bass Highways, in the Bass Coast Shire of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. The town, known originally for its coal mining, is now the regional service center for tourism, beef and dairy industries, with a population of approximately 6,000. [...]

John A. Keel: Demonologist?

Artist John Frick (below) of Cumberland, Maryland, stands under his creation, a Mothman replica that hangs from the ceiling of the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The belief system that underlies the sidetracking of 1966′s Mothman sightings from cryptozoology into the “dark side” has a lot to do with John A. Keel’s apparent framing of the case. But some folks still don’t get it. Good guy John Frick, a list moderator on the Mothman Lives email list, innocently writes: As far as Keel being a demonologist. He really isn’t as far as I know. Keel has mentioned that [...]

Amur’s Kalgamashka

What is the world’s eight longest river? The Amur, of course, that runs between the far eastern land of Russia and Manchuria, also known as the Black River, with sacred connotations under the Manchu and during the Qing Dynasty. Word comes today of new unknown hominoid encounters along the lower Amur River. The Russian newspaper Vsja Rossija segodnja on November 27, 2006, reported that the hunter Nikolaj Dechuli from the Daergi settlement has found unusual footprints a few times. He has often seen an unknown being, which he thinks is a bear in the first instant: A giant covered in [...]

Alligators-In-The-Sewers Are Real

In the early 1970s, I did quite a great deal of library archive research on out-of-place alligators. That resulted in the publication of various Fortean articles, such as "Showers of Alligators," (Fate, Vol. 26, September 1973) and "Erratic Crocodilians and Other Things" (INFO Journal, 12, Summer 1973). Finally, I made a unique discovery that alligators-in-the-sewers were not all just legendary, and were not merely a figment of smoking too much weed in the 60s. I tracked down articles that noted real alligators were found and killed in New York City, specifically in that city’s sewers in the 1930s. My formal [...]

Yeti Skoda Yeti

These are apparently snapshots from the 2006 edition’s grand first showing in China. This Yeti design study was unveiled at the International Automobile Salon Skoda in Beijing this week. I’m still waiting for my testimonial commercial endorsement opportunity and the courtesy vehicle to drive around Maine, but, in the meantime, the idea merely goes on the Christmas wish list. “Skoda, Skoda, Skoda,” said the Yeti. “Sooka, Sooka, Sooka,” said the Sasquatch. “Myakka, Myakka, Myakka,” said the Skunk Ape. “Hey, all of you be quiet; I’m trying to get some sleep,” said the Almas.