Sterling Edmund Lanier, 79, who just died in Sarasota, Florida, harkens back to an era of early cryptozoologists and adventurers. Lanier worked as an editor at Chilton Books in the 1960s, alongside Ivan T. Sanderson, also an editor at Chilton. Chilton Books in 1961 published Sanderson’s famous book, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life. Sanderson and Lanier moved in similar natural history and publishing circles for a few years. Lanier wrote the foreword for one of Sanderson’s friends, Roger A. Caras’ 1964 Chilton-published book, Dangerous to Man; Wild Animals A Definitive Study of Their Reputed Dangers to Man. Born in [...]
Skeptic Barry Beyerstein, 60, Dies Suddenly
Barry Lane Beyerstein, a skeptic extraordinairé, was born on May 19, 1947, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In recent years, he called Moody Lake, British Columbia, his home. On Monday, June 25, 2007, one day after the 60th birthday of the beginning of the era of flying saucers just across the border in Washington State, Barry L. Beyerstein, 60, was found dead at his college office desk from a heart attack. Beyerstein, a psychology professor at Simon Frasier University, British Columbia, had become a famous media commentator on several topics from drug and alcohol addiction to social beliefs linked to parapsychology, [...]
Loren & Loch Ness on Video
Someone has uploaded parts of the History Channel’s recent repeat of an episode of “Deep Sea Detectives” featuring great archival footage of recent cryptozoological discoveries, the program’s hosts diving at Loch Ness, and yours truly in my home-research office-museum. Corrective footnote: Yes, I know that Loch Ness is six miles from the ocean, although I misspoke during one of the tapings, and too quickly said “mile” instead of “a few miles.” I do get excited in these interviews to try to share my down-to-earth passion for the topic. For more on this subject see: The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, [...]
D-Rock’s Tripp With Cryptozoology
It is not often you see cryptozoology mentioned in someone’s obituary, especially for someone so young as Derek Tripp. It seems as if the field has become so popular, so much a part of American cultural life, that among the creative, the intellectual, and the adventurous, cryptozoology is now routinely part of how we view and live in this world. In a remembrance written this third week in June 2007, Soundoff’s writer Jim Catalano, who has covered the Ithaca, New York, music scene since 1992, devoted part of his weekly column to: Remembering Derek Tripp Derek “D-Rock” Tripp, 33, bassist [...]
Nessie Video Due to Black Holes?
Editorial Commentary “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” as spoken by Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Gordon T. Holmes (above) is doing himself no favors by adding more information and speculation to his university-hosted website. In addition to coming up with some rather bizarre theories, he now is sending out appreciation for the feedback he’s receiving, while also saying no one can refer to his material any longer. What? Mr. Holmes continues to add more and more details to his staff pages at Bradford [...]
Update: Rock Ness & Nessie
Rock, paper, Nessie. Despite early Loch Ness Monster reports to the contrary in newspapers yesterday, there are hints that something cryptozoological did occur during the recent musical concert, Rock Ness. The usual things happened when a crowd of nearly 35,000 people gather. One man found unconscious under apparently “no suspicious circumstances,” died yesterday in a local hospital. A few people, seven to be specific, got arrested for “drugs charges and breach of the peace.” Lots of rock fans enjoyed two days of music in Scotland from 30 acts on five stages. It was just your typical outdoor music event. Almost. [...]
Editor Says: “Towns…Make Fortunes Selling Bigfoot”
People get the craziest ideas in their heads about all of the money supposedly flowing from “selling” Bigfoot and other cryptozoological monsters. What might be the source of such thoughts? Well, that would be the general media, of course. Take Dwain Walden, who is the editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, in Moultrie, Georgia. Apparently bored with the usual fare to write about, and obviously not coming up with any Father’s Day themes to his liking, this editor takes on Bigfoot. In a column for Sunday, June 17, 2007, Walden has a giggle at the expense of the “folks of Rock [...]
Rock Ness: Nessie Photos?
Nessie, seal, or otter? This does not represent a car full of Rock Ness attendees trying to photograph Nessie, but merely another view of the Spicer encounter of 1933 (used for promotional purposes by loch-ness.org on various Scottish tourism sites). As you will recall, after all the buzz of the Holmes video of an unknown something in Loch Ness, a million pounds was offered for definite photographic proof of Nessie. A promoter was to hand out reportedly 50,000 cameras at the Rock Ness concert held near Loch Ness. Attendence was more than the 22,000 that showed up last year for [...]
Real Otter Sense
I asked for a clear photograph of some otters swimming-in-a-line in the water, demonstrating what Joe Nickell had only drawn as the explanation of some of the classic sea serpent and lake monster sightings. None could easily be shown me from Nickell’s or others’ research. No one from the skeptical community could come forth with a good example. But cryptozoologists are always looking for all sides of the picture, pun-intended, and now I’ve been sent a clear instance where this behavior has been observed and photographed. The evidence of this has not been forwarded to me by a debunker, but [...]
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 [...]
Follow CryptoZooNews
Not Found
The resource could not be found.