Out of Place

Scorpions On Planes

Two incidents in one week. Two scorpions on two separate planes. The news is coming in so rapidly this week, I shared this one directly with Chad Arment’s Strange Ark, a good site for you to know about anyway. Read more fully about the scorpions on the planes, here.

Nashville And Bobbing Black Cats

Nashville Cats, play clean as country water Nashville Cats, play wild as mountain dew Nashville Cats, been playin’ since they’s babies Nashville Cats, get work before they’re two — by John B. Sebastian, Lovin’ Spoonful, 1967. Is this cryptid black cat a melanistic bobcat (Lynx rufus/Felis rufus)? Back on November 19, 2006, I wrote about the sightings and then videotape of a large short-tailed cat seen in Nashville, Tennessee. Speculations covered caracal, lynx, and bobcat. The two images below are from the video taken of the Tennessee Mystery Cat: Ben Willis of Bigcats.org brings to my attention that a road-killed [...]

More OOPA: Shark and Kangaroo

What is this tropical shark doing so far north in December? Please click for a larger image. The out-of-place animals (OOPA) are popping up all over the map. A manatee was recently captured off Texas. It is the third out-of-place manatee discovered since last August, far from Florida (the other two were found hundreds of miles inland in New York State and Tennessee). An eight-foot crocodile was captured on Grand Cayman Island. Are they early warning signs of something? Now comes more. There is a buzz, this week, over in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (a town known for its high levels of [...]

Another Out-of-Place Manatee

Tennessee’s Manatee Last August 2006, an out-of-place manatee showed up in the Hudson Valley, New York (remember Tappie?). Then in October, one apparently swam up the Mississippi River to a harbor near Memphis, Tennessee. The Memphis manatee was found dead in December in a lake in the State of Mississippi. On January 4, 2007, the news was announced that the reason for the death of the Memphis manatee may never be known, as not enough tissue samples could be collected to discover the cause. Perhaps the warm weather is disorienting manatees, as well as the blossoms coming out in New [...]

Mystery Cayman Croc Captured

What is an eight-foot long crocodile (Crocodylus sp.) – a Mexican example is seen above – doing in the Cayman Islands? They have been extinct there for an undetermined number of years. It obviously is not someone’s escaped pet. “Mystery crocodile described as ‘very fast and aggressive’” Cayman News Thursday, January 4, 2007 The origin of an eight-foot long crocodile captured near Old Man Bay in Grand Cayman last Saturday remains a mystery. Sightings of the reptile in the north of the Island prompted 911 calls from members of the public. Police officers and officials from the Department of the [...]

Indian Rhinos in Nepal Vanish

On January 3, 2007, Scientific American shared the news that a group of rare, re-located Indian (Great One-horned) rhinocercos have disappeared. It was announced in Kathmandu that they have mysteriously vanished from a nature reserve in southwest Nepal. The article by Gopal Sharma continues: Authorities introduced 72 rhinos, also known as the Indian rhinoceros, in the Babai Valley, 320 km (200 miles) southwest of Kathmandu, as part of a conservation drive that started in 1984. “We have records showing 23 rhinos had died due to poaching or other causes. The rest are missing,” Laxmi Prasad Manandhar, a senior official at [...]

Maine Mutant #6 in 2006

An automobile travels the sparsely used Route 4 through the Turner, Maine, area, little knowing what it will meet around the next corner. It wasn’t a Stephen King novel, but a real-life incident that captured the media, first in Maine, then more globally last summer, into early fall. Lewiston, Maine’s Sun Journal published their 2006 year-in-review on the first day of the new year. Route 4′s “Mystery Animal” (a/k/a “Maine Mutant”) was on their list. Monday, January 1, 2007 Top stories of 2006 Tragedies dominated the tri-county news in 2006, with young people dying in car accidents, plane crashes, the [...]

Cold Case Investigation For 2007: The Myakka Photos

All Photographs and Enhancements of the Myakka Photographs on this page are © David Barkasy and Loren Coleman 2001. It all began with a December 22, 2000, letter signed “God Bless. I prefer to remain anonymous,” mailed to the Sarasota (Florida) Sheriff’s Department. Two photographs were enclosed. I’ve written about this extensively, so for some quick details, merely click here. For this blog, it is more about just re-viewing the images, not reading the words. Let’s look. I’d like to see more progress on this one, either pro or con, in 2007. Here’s a selection of the photographs, with details [...]