Cryptozoology

Discovered: Circa 1350 A.D. Hominid Updated

What is it? Click on image for a larger version. I note that the National Library of the Netherlands has identified this image as being a "monkey." But I note this primate is not showing any tail. Look at the feet? Those are definitely not the feet of a monkey or even an ape. In terms of scale, this animal is shown with panels of various known, correctly drawn species that include a horse, a goat, a sheep, a wild boar, a hunting dog, a deer, and others. When those animals are compared to this one, they do not all [...]

Caracal in Nashville?

Local officials in Nashville, after viewing video (see update below) showing the mystery cat in Warner Park, has identified the felid as an African caracal (above) or an Eurasin lynx, according to the Tennessean. Not a cougar. There seems to be a bit more of a push to the caracal theory than any other. However, perhaps the wildlife officials have come up with a bit more exotic explanation than they should have? As one comment at the newspaper site reveals: I have viewed the video of the cat in Warner Park shown on Channel 4 TV news. It is definetly [...]

How About A Cryptomundo Write-In?

From November 29, 2005, this “Name The Mystery Fish” blog image remains the readers’ favorite. (You can click on it to make the postcard image above bigger.) But who remembers blogs or mystery fish, without awards? LOL. ‘Tis the season…let the voting begin; let the year-end awards drumbeat start. Web awards, of course, are all over the place. There are the Webby, the Golden Web, and the Zorgy Awards, to name a few, for websites and more. It looks like Cryptomundo has been shut out of those for yet another year, and remains as hidden (to award givers) as most [...]

Ozark Howler: Faux Cryptozoologie

During the last decade, several attempts have occurred to promote the "Ozark Howler" as a real cryptid. After the first round of efforts, I gathered the specifics of the story, discovered the identity of the original hoaxer, and submitted the overview of what happened in a draft manuscript written with Jerome Clark in 1998. The draft would eventually become a published book. A photograph of a real howler, the black howler monkey (Alouatta caraya) of South America. Photographer Jessie Cohen, Smithsonian. The editors at Simon and Schuster, deciding to delete about 25% of the content of the draft mostly due [...]

Ozark Mystery What-Is-It?

What do you think? A man was out squirrel hunting in the Ozarks; he killed a squirrel and out of the woods rushed an animal trying to grab the squirrel. So the hunter shot that thing too. Hard to believe? Here are the photographs of the thing, which some people feel has some banding on the body. As you can see from the dates on the images, the photographs are from October 2006. The location is Ozark, Arkansas, west of Russellville about 45 miles. A similar animal was spotted around Hector. Hector is a tiny hamlet in the Ozark Mountains [...]

Update: Keel, Kolchak, and Garuda

Here is a little more news to add to what I said earlier about Keel’s health. Keel’s fictional alter-ego Kolchak makes an appearance (interesting timing that), Skinner pops in on Keel, and a winged spirit coincidentally turns up. Beware of the ides of Mothman, November 15, 2006, forty years back to the future. John A. Keel during the 1970s, in the midst of writing about Mothman. Darren McGavin in the 1970s as "Carl Kolchak". Is he searching the skies for a winged weirdie? As I mentioned when Darren McGavin died at the age of 83 on February 25, 2006, it [...]