Media Appearances

Top Cryptozoology Stories Picked as Best of the Best

In today’s Washington City Paper, columnist Mark Athitakis has picked his “The Best of the Best,” which are his “top ten favorite best-of-the-year lists” for 2007. His # 6 is noted as: Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories (Cryptomundo)

Lists of Zoo Incidents: Dangling Feet & Trails of Blood

In December 1985, at the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids, Michigan, pregnant zookeeper Gayle Booth, 30, was fatally mauled by the above jaguar. Wild animals are dangerous, inside zoos and outside. The mystery surrounding how the San Francisco Zoo’s tiger (below) escaped from the grotto may be slowly becoming solved. Human intervention could have been part of the cause. San Francisco police are investigating the possibility that one of the victims in the fatal tiger mauling on Christmas Day climbed over a waist-high fence and then dangled a leg or other body part over the edge of a moat [...]

Bring Forth The Track Cast of Nessie!

A few years ago, the cry across the land was to have the head of a Sea-Serpent brought to Science. I place the same kind of call out there regarding the alleged track cast of the footprint of the Loch Ness Monster collected in December 1933, some 74 years ago. Of course, we all take it to heart that the footprints found on the shores of Loch Ness were fakes made by Marmaduke Wetherell. But within cryptozoology, we must be skeptical in all directions. How many times have I heard about a “hoax” claim, especially with tracks, which has as [...]

Clemson Panther Alerts

In an era of university shootings, campuswide notices from college law enforcement that there is a danger on the grounds of the university are taken a lot more seriously than they use to be. On Sunday, December 16, 2007, such warnings went out across the campus of Clemson University in South Carolina, not about a rampage shooter, but regarding the sightings of a cryptid cat, a panther. One Cryptomundo reader forwarded the following note and two campus alerts: I work at Clemson University in upstate South Carolina. We receive news alert broadcasts from time to time, through email from campus [...]

Foja Mountains’ “Lost World” Mammals

Martua Sinaga holds this 1.4 kg giant rat that is probably a species new to science. Photo by Bruce M Beehler On Sunday night, December 16, 2007, the CBS program “60 Minutes” ran a segment on the research discoveries of Bruce M. Beehler in Indonesia’s remote Foja Mountains of western New Guinea. The discovery of this so-called “lost world” was a media event earlier on February 7, 2007 (see here). A probable new species of pygmy possum in the genus Cercartetus (Pygmy Possum). Photo by Bruce M Beehler The earlier media treatments of the findings had gotten somewhat overblown (see [...]