Cryptozoology

New Mystery Animal Photograph

Is this photograph the “Mystery Animal” seen for decades in West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands? This picture was taken by an automatic digital camera set on private property in a 3000 acre wilderness in which no human inhabitants live. It was caught on film on August 8, 2006 at 0700 Hours. Since the original owners do not want to become embroiled in the heated Eastern Mountain Lion mystery debate, the Eastern Puma Research Network will be fielding all responses for this photograph. The EPRN can be reached via email at epuma [at] beaconnet [dot] net. Photograph courtesy of the initial West [...]

Sumatran Rhinos Are Living Fossils

Zoologist Darren Naish has written a thoughtful essay on “Are Sumatran Rhinos Really Living Fossil?” His blog is in response to my comments on the “living fossil” issue, discussed here. I disagree with Naish’s restrictive parameters, of course, as I see this more an issue of educational semantics influenced by zoology, not ruled by it. Darren Naish’s approach is worthy of your attention and he has every right to his very informed point of view. Needless to say, in this case, I was employing the “living fossil” definition that this rhino species is “a living species/clade with many ‘primitive’ characteristics [...]

New Bird Discovered in India

New Multicolored Bird Found in India September 12, 2006 A new bird species has been found in India, the first time such a discovery has been made here in more than 50 years, an astronomer and keen bird watcher said Tuesday. The multicolored bird (Bugun liocichla) was spotted in May 2006, in the remote Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh near the border with China, said Ramana Athreya, a member of Mumbai’s Natural History Society. Athreya, who found the bird, named it after the Bugun tribe, which lives in the area. The bird has a black [...]

Flatwoods: September 12th

It looked worse than Frankenstein. It couldn’t have been human. Kathleen May. The smell was like oil on hot metal. You know, that greasy, sweet, slippery odor, slightly burnt and perhaps even appealing. But then more and more of it seemed to be saturating the molecules all around. It filled your nose. It permeated your pores. It made you sick to your stomach. It wouldn’t go away. The creepy feeling was close, something beyond the knowing, beyond understanding. The dog was sick; the boys ran down the hill. In two days, the dog was dead, and no one thereabouts would [...]

9/11 Creature

On the night of September 11, 1997, Ines Valdivieza and her 6-year-old daughter observed a small creature, brown in color with large red eyes, run from a pig-pen area in Colonia Revolucion Mexicana, Mexico. It made high bounding strides and disappeared into the dark. Five hogs were later found dead, completely drained of blood with strange scars on their necks. Source: Albert S. Rosales, Humanoid Contact Database, 1997, citing Pascual Rolando Pacheco Herrera.

Irwin’s Missing Thylacine Footage

The only known image of Steve Irwin from 2.07. I’ve been challenged by critics that say Steve Irwin never looked for the Thylacine. Here’s more evidence that he did. As I wrote early after Steve Irwin was killed by a stringray, he apparently devoted an episode of "The Crocodile Hunter" to his search for the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger. There was furthermore a rumor that he might have captured an elusive, supposedly extinct Thylacine on videotape during the making of that episode. But, for whatever reason, the blurry footage was never broadcast. Or was it? Irwin’s link to the Thylacine [...]