Expedition Reports

Thompson’s Sea Serpent Hunt

One thing leads to another. Looking into the new mystery photo postcard has taken me to more of the backstory that involves a Sea Serpent hunt exactly 100 years ago. In 1908, a Little River couple on an outing on Biscayne Bay reported seeing a sea serpent with a 30-foot-long body and a long, slender neck. An intrepid and well-known fisherman, Capt. Charles Thompson, set off after the sea monster. Thompson was certainly the man for the job: He had fished with four U.S. presidents and powerful industrialists such as John Jacob Astor and William Vanderbilt. Even the Miami Metropolis [...]

Nazis & The Search for Yeti

Heinrich Harrer in Tibet. I got to first thinking about Nazis, Tibet, and Yeti, three years ago, when I heard that famed mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, 93, died on January 7, 2005. The entire story does feel like it is straight out of Indiana Jones, of course. Movies are often a point of reference, needless to say. Harrer was portrayed by Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet, a 1997 movie based on Harrer’s 1953 nonfiction memoir with the same title. But sometimes the movies leave out the best parts. Harrer’s interest in what today we mostly know as the lore [...]

Monster Quest ~ The Real Hobbit + DSD ~ Loch Ness

Monster Quest: The Real Hobbit Travel to the interior of Sumatra, in Indonesia, in a search for what locals call the Orang Pendak [sic], translated as: Man of the Woods. In 2004 skeletal remains were found on the neighboring island of Flores and named “the Real Hobbit.” Could Orang Pendak [sic], with its human face, be a surviving ancestor to the Flores Man? An expedition is launched deep within the rainforest. The natives claim to see the creature often, and they even find footprints of an unknown upright walking beast. Will camera traps reveal its identity? One-part history, one-part science [...]

Hobbits, Ebu Gogo, and Orang Pendek

History Channel’s “MonsterQuest” is going to be investigating the socalled “real Hobbits” in their episode premiering on January 16th, 2008, at 10PM ET. The official summary of the program notes: “A MonsterQuest expedition will deploy researchers and the latest technology into the jungle, searching for evidence of a creature natives describe as half man, half ape.” This will be cryptozoologist Adam Davies (author of a forthcoming Anomalist Books title), who will be leading the “MonsterQuest” crew on an investigation of Orang Pendek activities, for one part of the program. Various cryptids and related hominoids discussed will be the “Hobbits” (i.e. [...]

Ten New Anoles and Salamanders Discovered

A total of ten new herpetology species have been announced from the Central American highlands in recent months, through new 2008 papers. Discussion of three of the new salamanders previously took place here, at Cryptomundo. Today, five images of four of the six new anoles and one new salamander are shared. Anolis pseudopachypus Anolis pseudokemptoni Anolis gruuo Anolis datzorum Oedipina fortunensis, a new salamander. A new 2008 paper in Herpetologica has announced and described the discovery of new anoles and new salamander species several months ago. Four of the new anoles were found in the Serrania de Tabasara, Panamanian highlands [...]

Classic Yeti Images

With the death of Sir Edmund Hillary and Yeti images of the photographs from that era (1950s and 1960s), insights into the evolution of how the Abominable Snowmen were viewed can be considered through the lenses of time and distance. The first image shared here (click on Perkins Yeti) is the 1960 lifesize drawing shown by then-Lincoln Park Zoo director Marlin Perkins before the World Book expedition to the Himalayas with Sir Edmund Hillary. (This may be different than the large cutout Perkins showed on “Wild Kingdom” in 1963, or it may be the same one.) Below is the slightly [...]

Yeti Hunter Sir Edmund Hillary Dies

Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two men to climb the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, has died at the age of 88, on January 11, 2008, local New Zealand time. He climbed the 29,035 ft (8,850m) peak with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, reaching the top on May 29, 1953. Hillary’s health had reportedly been in decline since April 2007, after a fall while visiting Nepal. He suffered a heart attack in hospital on Friday morning. Sir Edmund’s fellow climber, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay (right), died in May 1986. Born July 20, 1919, in Auckland, New Zealand, Sir Edmund Hillary began [...]

Living Moa News

The little blue moa. The Thylacine of the Avian world is in the news again. Australian cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy recently discussed the latest new findings for Moas with the Hawke’s Bay Today. One of the good points about Gilroy is that he does serve as a lightning rod for unusual animal accounts in the region sometimes, and likewise has the ear of the media. The press reports tend to lower the ridicule curtain and more reports and sightings, historical and recent ones, then come forth. Most of the cryptozoological attention to the survival of the Moas has been directed to [...]