Syracuse Herald, May 15, 1921 In 1920, the Smithsonian Institution sent a 32-person expedition to Africa, which found unexplained tracks along the riverbank and heard mysterious “roars.” See the “Dinosauria” chapter of my field guide for more details. One hundred years ago, people would grab their weekend newspapers and hurry to find the Sunday supplements. There they might discover new adventures of explorers in deepest darkest Africa, follow the treks of famed safari leaders, and learn of new animals being found in the jungles. Take a moment today, reach back to that feeling, understand the world is not fully explored, [...]
WV “African Lion” Updates
The fossil replica of the giant skull of Panthera atrox, the recently extinct American lion, the massive lion of the Pleistocene. It was probably maned. From Rancho La Brea Tar Pits. Photo: Baystatereplicas.com. On Friday, October 26, 2007, and the day before, the West Virginia Metro News, a radio service out of Charleston, broadcast followups to the recent reports of a “full-grown, male African lion.” Here are their two news items: Trout, W. Va. – Jim Shortridge has been hunting his entire life and says he knows what he saw. “A lot of people doesn’t believe it, but it doesn’t [...]
Posse Pursues Penn Ape
Corry, PA, Sept. 20. – (AP) – Fears of a “furry thing resembling an ape” subsided today in this Erie county community after a posse of farmers failed to locate the mysterious animal in a 48-hour search. The “thing” popped up Sunday [September 18] at the edge of a woods three miles south of Corry and sent Rose Marie Clabbatz, 13, and two smaller children of Howard Clabbatz, scurrying across the fields to their father. Clabbatz listened to their breathless story about an animal that “started chasing us” and organized a hunting party of 50 persons, many with guns. Yesterday [...]
SoCal’s Abominable Sandpeople
Do Bigfoot roam Southern California? Ken Coon, a former deputy sheriff for Los Angeles County collected many stories during the 1960s and 1970s, and most source material goes back to him. It appears one well-known paperback writer from that era used some of Coon’s material. Warren Smith in his 1970 book Strange Abominable Snowmen wrote about the “Abominable Sandman of Borrego,” regarding a hominoid that terrorized treasure hunters and gold prospectors in the isolated Borrego Valley desert of California. Unfortunately, Smith had a tendency to first lift material uncredited (as from Coon) and the fictionalize his “expert” sources, so I [...]
Halloween Premiere: Monsterquest
During the year, the crew from this show came to Maine, Texas, and a lot of other places across North America. Don’t be surprised if you see some familiar faces in this series, including people you know in the first mini-documentary ever about an all-women Bigfoot expedition. Monsterquest, which debuts this fall, will take a scientific look at “creature” sightings around the world. History announced its 13-episode order for Monsterquest. There will be episodes on “monsters” such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Swamp Beast and the Creature of Snellgrove Lake. The series — described as one part history, one [...]
Maned Lion Prowls West Virginia
Reports of mystery cats appearing to be maned, looking like “African lions,” constitute an entire chapter in Mysterious America and much of my attention down through the years. The sightings are infrequent, but when they occcur they tend to be dramatic and clear. Historically, they go back further than the “circus train” wreck explanation is able to deal with them, and you will see today, continue to modern times. Big Roaring Creek, West Virginia – The king of the jungle just might be playing king of the mountain in a remote area of Greenbrier County. While bow hunting last Wednesday [...]
Sasquatch Meets the Marshmallows
As Cryptomundo readers know, there is an increase at this time of year in the newspapers and on the local broadcasts of “spooky” news items. On television cable, this translates into more features on weird subjects. Cryptozoology gets thrown into this Halloween mix, perhaps unfortunately. Bigfoot walks across your television screen, again and again. Sasquatch meets the marshmallows, it seems. This year, with the 40th anniversary of the Patterson-Gimlin footage, the Halloween Bigfoot/Sasquatch effect has been more than usual. Several nights have been devoted to wall-to-wall replays of old Bigfoot specials and programs. Many of us are very familiar with [...]
When A Mangy Bear Is Just A Mangy Bear
The image here was posted to Cryptomundo as “Créature de Jacobs” and noted as being of a bare bear. It was added to the site to help those people trying to figure out what the latest blobsquatch photograph posted over at the BFRO was, which was being called a “juvenile Sasquatch.” I find it amazing that certain individuals started throwing out the words “Chupacabear,” “detective work,” and “photoshopping” with regard to this above photograph. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission photograph was employed, on occasion, with a news story coming out of Florida four years ago, about routine sightings of [...]
India’s Cow-Eating Trees
Depiction of a native being consumed by a Ya-te-veo (“I can see you”) carnivorous tree of Central America, from Land and Sea by J.W. Buel, 1887. Source: Wikipedia. (The image appears to be from a woodcut, naturally.) In Roy Mackal’s book, Searching for Hidden Animals (NY: Doubleday, 1980), his last chapter is entitled “The Monstrous Plants.” It was not about cryptozoology, needless to say, but about cryptobotany, being a short treatise on the Victorian accounts of man-eating plants. As Mackal points out, many zoologists and botanists have been fascinated by plants that eat meat since the days when Charles Darwin [...]
Men of Cryptozoology: Scott Norman
Mokele-mbembe art courtesy of Bill Rebsamen. Click on image for a larger view. Scott T. Norman recently journeyed from California to the East Coast of the USA. He attended the Mass Monster Mash on October 13, and on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Patterson-Gimlin Film, happened to visit me, along with five members of his family, at the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. Scott is a cryptozoologist who has taken his passion for dinosaurs, Mokele-mbembe, and prehistoric cryptids, all the way to Africa. He definitely ranks as one of the Men of Cryptozoology. Let’s meet him [...]
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