Eyewitness Accounts

Penn Giant Snake Eats Kittens

One hundred years ago, explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett was sent by the Royal Geographic Society to make a thorough survey of the Rio Abuna and Acre Rivers. He encountered a Giant Snake. Today, sightings of a large serpent have stirred the media in the Midwest USA. Click image for full-size version Fawcett ran across his snake in 1907, as he was drifting along the Rio Negro. Fawcett shot the creature and finally examined it on the river bank where it came ashore. According to Fawcett, the snake measured 45 feet out of the water and 17 in it, for [...]

More Otter Nonsense

An old drawing of the animal described by Mr. and Mrs. George Spicer seen crossing the road near Dores, Scotland, one of the two examples examined today. Ten days ago, I posted what became a very popular entry here (+125 comments), “Otter Nonsense”. In discussing my appearance with Joe Nickell on CNN’s “Paula Zahn Now”, I noted that Nickel used a broad brush in debunking Lake Monster accounts. The major “skeptic” argument presented during the CNN interview was Joe Nickell quickly telling and returning again to statements that all Lake Monster reports could be explained as being otters. While some [...]

1981 Champ Conference

Were you there? Did you attend the August 1981 conference in Vermont, the first scientific seminar devoted to a study of the cryptids that have been reported lurking in the waters of Lake Champlain for the past 300 years? It sort of was the Woodstock of Champ. I was there. I wrote about the conference in Mysterious America. Here’s a sample what I saw and heard: In the morning session, Joseph Zarzynski ran down the historical background of the Champ sightings and introduced the audience of 200 people to the Sandra Mansi photograph. Projected on a wall-size screen in an [...]

Otter Nonsense

Otters, of course, are responsible for a few misidentifications of Lake Monsters in bodies of water worldwide. In my The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep (co-authored by Patrick Huyghe), the fact that people do make mistakes when viewing mundane mammals on lakes and lochs is acknowledged. Otters, nevertheless, have never been seen as the root of all Lake Monsters accounts, as seemed to be expressed on CNN’s “Paula Zahn Now” last week by the guest skeptic. Otters are hardly in vogue any longer. Even Bernard Heuvelmans’ theory of the “super-otters,” as [...]

The Lord God Bird Trailer

The Voice of America has announced that a new documentary film is in production about the ivory-billed woodpecker. The title of the new documentary by George Butler is The Lord God Bird. This film’s title, of course, reflects the name of the bestseller that appeared just as the news of the new video was hitting the media – Phillip Hoose’s The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004). However, Phillip has confirmed that his book is not the foundation of this documentary. The VOA’s low-key release follows: A North American bird believed to have [...]

Gordon Holmes’ Nessie Footage: No Watermark

Cryptomundo reader goochcamper has reposted the footage with no watermark. Does this allow you, the Cryptomundo reader, to view it and make out the details now unobstructed?