Lake Monsters

Hoan Kiem’s Giant Turtle

In the midst of a very long article reviewing the eating establishments and the The Ho Chi Minh Museum of Hanoi, Vietnam, there’s a surprising update on the Old City’s most famous cryptid. Photograph of the Hoan Kiem Lake’s Giant Turtle. Credit Vietnam.net Here’s what we learn from Simon Busch, in the January 28th edition of London’s Financial Times: The turtle of Hoan Kiem Lake sounds terribly lonely. Such experts as there are on this most elusivecreature, Vietnam’s only slightly less fabulous version of the Loch Ness Monster, contend furiously over its likely age and its species – even its [...]

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 [...]

Four Mokele-mbembe Related Deaths

We aren’t talking curse yet, but there have been four Mokele-related deaths, not three as earlier noted, for 2005. The Mokele-mbembe-involved individuals, who have died in 2005, are: Pastor Phil Anderton, 48, who was a missionary for 15 years in the Cameroons among the Baku pygmies, died in Kansas City, of a brain tumor, on August 24, 2005. Anderton assisted several of the Bill Gibbons-John Kirk-Scott Norman expeditions in the Cameroons. Anderton tribute. J. Richard Greenwell, 63, cofounder of the defunct International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC), died November 1, 2005, of cancer, in Tucson, Arizona. Greenwell accompanied Roy Mackal on [...]

New Mokele-mbembe Expedition Departs

The latest expedition to search for the “dinosaurlike” cryptids known by African natives as mokele-mbembe has departed. Milt Marcy, Peter Beach and Rob Mullin left Portland, Oregon for Cameroon on January 10, 2006. They will be teaming up with Pierre Sima to conduct the next phase of the cryptozoological research on the Congo/Cameroon border. The Milt Marcy Expedition is the fourth such trek to Africa, with the three before this one being lead by William Gibbons. Marcy is an insurance broker (Milt Marcy Insurance) in Portland, Oregon, who has funded the last three expeditions, and will be participating in this [...]

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 [...]