Out of Place

Iraq’s Garta & Badgers and Africa’s Nandi Bear

The digital recordings of Iraq’s supposedly cryptid Garta (“The Muncher”) look like “badgers,” of course. But what is a badger? Why would American and British troops in Basrah think these were unusual badgers? Some clarification needs to be shared on what is a badger? Most Americans visualize the badger differently than how most Europeans do. In Africa, when you say “badger,” Africans think of another animal, as well. The Honey Badger or Ratel. Badger is the common name for any animal of three subfamilies, which belong to the family Mustelidae: the same mammal family as the ferrets, the weasels, the [...]

The Garta: Creatures Seen Near Basrah, Iraq

Sightings Spread Horror, Conpiracy Theories Among Locals By Zeyad Kasim, July 6, 2007 For over a month now, people in Basrah have been circulating rumors about a “strange,” bear-like deadly creature that attacks people at night with its strong claws. Locals in rural areas around Basrah claim it has killed three people and injured six others, and that it usually pounces on its victims as they are sleeping outdoors during hot summer nights, when electric power outages are common. Farmers at Garmat Ali, Abu Skheer, Jisr and Shikhatta were so alarmed, they assigned guarding duties at night to prevent its [...]

Twisted Tales of Mystery Cat Photo

Here, below, is the one photograph that has been released, thusfar, of the Maine Mystery Cat, taken from a homeowner’s backyard in Sidney, Maine. The photo is from a digital camera, and the pixels give this felid a less than sharp configuration. But as you can see from reading the past blogs on this matter, the downloading of the camera, from the testimony of the photo lab owner, speaks well for this image to have not been Photoshopped. But that has not stopped others from using various techniques to manipulate this image. While no one seems to have seen a [...]

Cryptofiction and Coelacanth Scales: Sterling E. Lanier Dies

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 [...]

Lake Springfield’s Suspicious Serpent

Springfield, Illinois, is in central Illinois, in the Midwest USA, west of Decatur. It is the state capital and the county seat of Sangamon County. The Sangamon River, which flows near Decatur and Springfield was impounded to make Lake Decatur. But the manmade Lake Springfield is a reservoir built by impounding water upstream of Spaulding Dam on Sugar Creek. The water for the lake comes from rain falling directly on Lake Springfield, however, the predominant supply is runoff from the 265-square-mile watershed that lies primarily southwest of the lake, most notably from Lick and Sugar Creeks and their tributaries, that [...]

Update: Penn Giant Snake

The readers’ comments at Cryptomundo have foreshadowed what the media has discovered from “experts” who were asked about the recent black Giant Snake reports from Bucks County. I’m not surprised because it is obvious we have some extremely knowledgeable people registered here and leaving insights. Here are the media-obtained remarks: A spokeswoman from the Philadelphia Zoo who is an expert on snakes said it’s possible for snakes to eat small animals, but if they do, they will swallow them whole and not leave anything behind. She also said that a snake’s appetite would be less than usual with the weather [...]

Penn Giant Snake Eats Kittens

One hundred years ago, explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett was sent by the Royal Geographic Society to make a thorough survey of the Rio Abuna and Acre Rivers. He encountered a Giant Snake. Today, sightings of a large serpent have stirred the media in the Midwest USA. Click image for full-size version Fawcett ran across his snake in 1907, as he was drifting along the Rio Negro. Fawcett shot the creature and finally examined it on the river bank where it came ashore. According to Fawcett, the snake measured 45 feet out of the water and 17 in it, for [...]

Something’s Savaging Lee Straw’s Sheep

Something’s killing Lee Straw’s sheep. Most of his flock is kept safe on remote islands, just off the rugged New England coast. But many of the rest, over the past week, have been slaughtered by a mysterious and vicious killer. If this were most parts of rural North America, dead livestock would just be part of the cycle of life. But in Maine — where Stephen King-approved dark imagery covers every unexplained and bloody happening — the twin mass killings of Straw’s flock is quickly becoming the stuff of legend and speculation. Last Sunday [June 3, 2007], the frustrated herder [...]