Eyewitness Accounts

Reconsidering Mermaids

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Often it’s merely a good line drawing. Cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall passes along a delightful “editorial cartoon” for our consideration in rethinking some issues and comments involved in Merbeing theorizing and debunking. Enjoy! Please click on the image for the full-size cartoon. Thanks to Mia B. Smith, Permissions Coordinator at American Scientist, who informs me the copyright for this cartoon is Bill Long, 2005.

Emela-Ntouka: Africa’s Killer of Elephants

Cryptomundo Exclusive The Emela-ntouka has been an unknown animal of some confusion in Africa. A few chroniclers have felt it was merely another named cryptid representing the sightings of the Mokele-mbembe. But as revealed by an image seen here for the first time, it appears to be a beast unlike the saurapod-like Mokele-mbembe. Click on image for larger size Copyright: Michel Ballot – Mokélé – Mbembé CAMEROUN 2004 On page 219 of one of my recent field guides, written with Patrick Huyghe, we noted, among several different kinds of alleged “dinosaurs” in Africa, “one animal is called by locals the [...]

Old Bad Yeti Tales

There is old Yeti news beginning to circulate as a new wire service story on January 15-16, 2006. It is all about Sir Edmund Hillary and his 1960 search for the Abominable Snowmen. +++ Harry Trumbore’s drawing of the Himalayan “Yeti,” from the forthcoming The Field Guide to Bigfoot, to be published by Anomalist Books. Copyright 2006, Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe. +++ See, for example, the new Australian article, “Hillary’s Abortive Hunt for Yeti Left Sherpa Myth Undisturbed”. They begin with Hillary’s conclusion that the Yeti is a cultural myth, and then they build the case on the retelling [...]

Lost Legacies, Lost Evidence: Herman Regusters

I want to start an effort in 2006 to rediscover some missing people and their lost cryptozoological evidence, gone for years. Let’s begin with the well-known Californian cryptozoologist Herman Regusters. In the fall of 1981, Herman Regusters and his wife led a team into Lake Tele, Congo, in search of Mokele-mbembe. (Even though they might be undiscovered aquatic mammals, the cryptids called Mokele-mbembe are often discussed, first and foremost, in hauntingly romantic ways as perhaps surviving "Living Dinosaurs" in deepest Africa, in a somewhat Victorian fashion.) The Regusters returned with droppings, footprint casts, and sound recordings unlike any animal known [...]