Cryptozoology

Black Cat is Kitty Cat?

In a breaking news story out of Australia, a Talangi researcher named Bernie Mace (who told the media there that he’s been researching mystery cat reports for thirty years), is quoted as having a new theory. Mace earlier had said the black cat that Melbourne deer hunter Kurt Engel shot in June 2005 was a melanistic puma. Black pumas are unverified in North and South America, let alone in Australia, the United Kingdom, and other reported areas, such as Germany, where they have been sighted. A mystery felids, a black catlike cryptid, nevertheless, is frequently encountered in areas of unknown [...]

Yeti at Bates

Yeti at Home at Bates This weekend’s Bates College Cryptozoology Symposium will bring together artists and cryptozoologists, for the first time, as far as I know, in a credible academic setting. It is the kickoff to the June-October 2006 exhibition, and will have a good schedule of talks on cryptozoology, art, science, creativity, and more. One change in the talks is a cancellation of Rachel Berwick for personal family matters, to be replaced by June O’Neill, discussing The Great New England Sea Serpent. The weekend should be informative and fun. I am also happy to announce that the Museum has [...]

Book News: Lizardmen

North Carolina resident and cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall has written a new 2005 book Lizardmen, about the seemingly bipedal reptiloids that have had some curious encounters with humans. These reports cross the investigative path of cryptozoologists, now and then, and have many people scratching their heads. Hall, based on his past writings on this subject in his journal Wonders, explores and extends his theories in this latest book. It looks to be a volume with some intriguing and new material, as is to be expected from Hall’s intellectual works.   Here’s a peek inside, with a look at the chapter [...]

Amazing Stalked Crinoids

Hot on the heels of the first live photographs of a giant squid, there’s news of another sea-based animal being photographed – for the first time – revealing a never-before-seen behavior. Stalked crinoids such as Endoxocrinus parrae have now been filmed running across the ocean floor, at a pace of 140 meters per hour. See this rather amazing video with a click here. Thanks to the Anomalist Newsline for this news.

Media Alert: Lake Monsters

Being broadcast tonight, and reportedly to be repeated for months to come, will be "Weird Travels: Lake Monsters" (Sunday, 23 October 2005, 10:00 p.m. Eastern) on the Travel Channel. The episode details cryptozoological research and hunts for the Loch Ness Monsters (Nessie) at Loch Ness, Scotland, and Champ at Lake Champlain in New York, Vermont, and Quebec. The producer and crew stopped by to interview me on August 10, and they had just been to Lake Champlain. My time with them was serious and well-balanced. They did tell me that they had just taped footage of the Vermont Expos mascot, [...]

Midwestern Mystery Cats

Phantom Felids Roam the Country…Still Whether you call them Phantom Panthers, Black Panthers, Mystery Felids, or Mystery Cats, sightings and reports from North America’s Midwest and East continue to roll in. The Associated Press’ Jim Suhr, with a dateline out of Carbondale, Illinois has written a good summary article of recent happenings. Carbondale was my old stomping grounds in 1965-1969, when I was being educated as an undergraduate Saluki, at Southern Illinois University. It was a hot spot from which to study reports of cryptid felines back then, so there’s no reason to think it would change now, what, forty [...]

Black Lagoon Creature Returns

Creature From the Black Lagoon and Coelacanths You know that cryptozoology is having a culturally significant impact when a movie 50 years old, inspired by a cryptozoological event, is being remade. Variety announced last week that Universal has hired Breck Eisner, the director of last spring’s "Sahara," to steer "Creature From the Black Lagoon" into the mainstream, for a new era of movie viewers, many who are fascinated by real-life cryptids. The original concept for the movie developed from the excitement in the early 1950s that surrounded the Comoros Islands (near Madagascar) discovery of a "living fossil," the coelacanth. After [...]