Out of Place

Stegosaur in Cambodia?

What real evidence exists for dinosaurs having survived into more contemporary times? What are we to make of the carving of a Stegosaur (Stegosaur stenops) on an ancient Cambodian temple at Angkor Wat? Click image for full-size version This carving is now being shown to tourists, proclaiming it is a dinosaur. Such a situation, thusfar, has only caused a few comments online, at such locations as the Unexplained Earth webpage last summer, as well as other sites. But all this appears to be changing, with more and more attention to this item. For example, there is new talk of this [...]

Minnesota Mystery Cat Captured

Sometimes cryptids are captured. Credit for video capture (no pun intended) from KSTP-TV. The recent sightings of a mystery cat in a Willmar, Minnesota neighborhood have resulted in the capture of a mountain lion, yesterday, on the first of February 2006. Surprise, surprise. It is a real animal. It was not a phantom or a figment of people’s imagination. The female mountain lion, puma, cougar, or whatever American moniker you want to use, officials say, weighs about 80 pounds and is believed to be 12 to 18 months old. But more importantly, the government line is reflected in the day [...]

Beast of Balbirnie

Tracks of a black leopard or melanistic panther in Scotland, at first dismissed by police as those of a St. Bernard dog, have been confirmed as a large feline’s. Scottish law enforcement authorities, on the evening of February 1st, released a statement noting they feel a black leopard (the size of a collie) is roaming near a Scottish town. As the Glasgow Herald is reporting in their February 2nd issue: A plaster cast of a paw print made following a sighting of the so-called “Beast of Balbirnie” in October [2005] has been studied by zoologists. The large, dark-coloured animal has [...]

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 [...]

Coelacanth Extinction?

Boing Boing has posted an intriguing entry on “Coelacanths in Danger” today. Who would ever have thought that the coelacanth, “rediscovered” in 1938 & 1952 (off Africa) and then, shockingly, “rediscovered” in 1998 (off Sumatra), would be the topic so quickly of them going extinct. As Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz observes: The coelacanth is a fish that was thought to have been extinct for the last 65 million years until it showed up in 1938 near South Africa. Apparently though, it’s really on the verge of extinction this time. Last year, 25 of them were accidentally caught in shallow-water nets. [...]

Italian Black Panthers

An Italian press outlet is reporting that the country is experiencing a wave of Black Panther sightings. In an item entitled "Panther Panic Hits Italy Again," the old explanation that it "escaped from a zoo" or "circus train wreck" cropped up again. But the Russian zoo currently performing in Turin, Italy, the location of the recent Black Panther sightings, denied it was theirs. "We don’t have any panthers anyway. All we have are dogs, camels and horses," a zoo spokesman said. One eyewitness was a Turin traffic cop who managed to identify the big feline as a black panther. Authorities [...]

“Big” Ohio Cat?

Another “big” (?) black cat sighting has occurred in Ohio, this time with video being produced. Channel 10-TV, WBNS in Columbus, Ohio has the footage at their website. Rufus Hurst of Granville took the videotape of the black felid form in a forest-like setting. What do you think it looks like? The captured image appears to show a black domestic cat, at least in my first scan. But we aren’t going to reproduce an image from the videotape here for copyright reasons. Look at it quickly. Photos like this disappear quickly from the internet.

Wisconsin ‘Roo Killed

As my recent posting on the sightings of Minnesota kangaroos noted, Midwestern encounters with cryptid ‘roos are more frequent than most people think. Now comes word that a 50 pound kangaroo was killed in rural Mauston, Wisconsin, on December 7th, by a truck driven by Ralph Hamm. And here’s the photographic proof. It had jumped out in front of Hamm’s truck in his driveway, but he could not stop. The Wisconsin State Journal noted that "kangaroos hopping around southern Wisconsin are becoming an annual occurrence. Last winter, a 130-pound kangaroo eluded Iowa County authorities for two days until he was [...]

The Mystery Fish – X-CMing

Is there such a thing as X-CMing? Extreme Cryptomundo.com -ing? You, the Cryptomundo readers, have demonstrated that the Mystery Fish Postcard Photograph is one of the most popular all-time cryptid image enigmas, yet. Due to popular demand, here is a roundup of all four direct links to the "Mystery Fish Photo" entries in the Cryptomundo.com blog, from earliest to most recent: "Name the Mystery Fish" "Name the Mystery Fish Continued" "Mystery Fish Comparison" "Mystery Fish Head Closeup" Almost two hundred comments, most of them extremely thoughtful and detailed, can be found at these entries, and yours are welcome here. To [...]