Eyewitness Accounts

New Big Bird Sightings

How often are large unknown birds seen and quickly explained away? Quite frequently, if a quick survey of newspapers are any indication this week. In Gary Bogue’s June 9, 2006, column on animals in the Contra Costa Times of the East Bay area near San Francisco, California, he publishes an item on a new big bird sighting. I corresponded with Bogue over 30 years ago, as I mention in Mysterious America, regarding the melanistic felid (Black Panther) accounts coming his way. It is obvious Bogue has become and been serving as the local man-to-go-to with any reports of strange animals. [...]

In Search of African Dragons

Jon Downes has announced that his Center for Fortean Zoology will attempt to track down recent accounts of “dragons” or monitor lizards in West Africa. In early July 2006, a six-person team from the North Devon-based UK group is travelling to Gambia to investigate these folktales. They may find the trail a little cold. Back on June 12, 1983, 15-year-old amateur naturalist Owen Burnham discovered the fresh carcass of a strange beast on the remote Bungalow Beach in Gambia. The stranded dead cryptid was around 15 feet long and looked like a cross between a crocodile and a dolphin. Owen [...]

Greenwich Cougar “Credible”

According to local media reports of June 1, 2006, a “cougar” is being seen near Greenwich, New Jersey. The police are taking the sightings seriously because they’ve seen them too. Since May 11, nine people have said they’ve seen a large cat roaming in several areas of the township, including near a day-care center, a youth-sports complex, and the DuPont Repauno Plant. A police officer has been assigned to patrol the area on a bicycle. Two police officers saw the cougar in broad daylight. One saw it chasing a herd of deer, [Detective Sgt. Joseph ] Giordano said. “Every one [...]

Chinese What-Is-It

There is a May 30, 2006, news item that is one of those tidbits that have you scratching your head. It is running in the China Daily under the headline "Bizarre Creature Puzzles Thousands." The entire article (note: it sometimes becomes a deadlink, having mysteriously vanished 12 hours after it was first published) reads: Thousands of residents of Tianmen, Hubei Province, have flocked to see a rare turtle-like creature caught by an elderly man in a nearby reservoir. Some think that the animal, weighing in at 8.3 kilograms, looks like an alligator. It has three rows of horns on its [...]

Mysterious Mizoram Mammal Sighted

Mizoram is a state in northeastern India, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, of nearly 900,000 people, with the the second highest rate of literacy (88%) among all the states of India, after Kerala. Mizaram is also the home of the mysterious Shinlung who believe themselves to be ethnically Jewish, descendants of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Reports out of Mizoram today are sweeping the state that giant "rat-like creatures" has been sighted there and have not been able to be captured yet. Officials have offered cash rewards to local villagers who kill or capture alive the "big rat-like creatures" [...]