Photos

Scientists Need Your Help: Identify This

Have you seen anything like the above, ever? This crustacean, found in the marine environment off Walpole and Portland, Maine, is not like anything researchers have seen before. Can you assist them with identifying it? (Photo courtesy Casco Bay Estuary Partnership) Reporter Ann S. Kim noted in The Maine Sunday Telegram on July 31, 2007, specifically about this unknown animal: A crustacean the size of a grain of rice was among the hundreds of specimens that researchers gathered in recent days from docks and piers from Cape Cod to midcoast Maine. The tiny crustacean, the marine version of a pill [...]

Photographed in Laos: Muntiacus vuquangensis

Large-antlered muntjak (Muntiacus vuquangensis) and unidentified poachers (below) in Nakai-Nam Theun National Protected Area, Laos. Copyright 2007 Nam Theun 2 Watershed Management and Protection Authority. Rare Jungle Deer Photographed For The First Time A camera trap has captured the first ever pictures of an elusive forest deer in its natural habitat, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The deer, called a large-antlered muntjak, was previously known only from specimens collected by hunters and a few brief glimpses by biologists. The species stands approximately 25-30 inches tall (65-80 cm) and weighs up to 110 pounds (50 kilograms). The photographs were taken [...]

Lawndale Thunderbird Abduction: A New Discovery

Jerry D. Coleman was the first investigator to talk to Ruth and Marlon Lowe about the Thunderbird abduction. The description he obtained from the eyewitnesses was exacting. As I’ve mentioned before, this is going to be a big year for anniversaries. From such events as the filming of the Bigfoot at Bluff Creek in 1967 to the Dover Demon sightings in 1977, decade milestones will be remembered often this year. The 30th anniversary of the Lawndale Thunderbird abduction is today, July 25th. On July 25, 1977, as 10-year-old Marlon Lowe played outside his family home along open fields near Kickapoo [...]

Chinese Lake Monster Videos: Fake or Real?

Reports of “monsters” in Lake Kansai have issued from China since at least the 1980s. In recent weeks, via news reports rebroadcast on YouTube, we are beginning to see various videos that are apparently of different animate objects. Are any of these motion pictures of animals? Or merely mistakes and known animals posing as cryptids? Well, you don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way that thar distance Lake Monsters, but do we even need a cryptozoologist for this one? Legendary lake ‘monster’ is captured on camera China’s Loch Ness monster has been sighted. Or so Chinese state-run television [...]

Happy Birthday Debunker of Yeti!

Today, July 20, 2007, Sir Edmund Hillary is 88 years old. Hillary’s name will always be linked, in my mind, to his World Book Encyclopedia-supported trek to Nepal in 1960, supposedly, to search for the “Abominable Snowman.” In reality, it actually allegedly was more about a spy mission against the Chinese, hidden in the media glare of a debunking Yeti expedition. The members of Hillary’s team (1) bought a bear skin that was declared to be a Yeti’s so it could be revealed to be a bear’s, (2) obtained a ritual religious object known to be made in imitation of [...]

The Day of the Triffids’ Kieron Moore Dies

In 1969, on July 20th, a man walked on the moon. Five days ago, one of the first men to walk with a Triffid died. Irish actor Kieron Moore, 82, died Sunday, July 15, 2007. He is one of the lead characters, Tom Goodwin in the motion picture, The Day of the Triffids. Playing an alcoholic biologist, Goodwin finds his core and ends up fighting the Triffids with vigor, while his character’s wife (played by Janette Scott) is credited with screaming a lot. The humans are stereotyped; the Triffids are not. For more on the acting career of Kieron Moore, [...]

Kangahippomouse?

No, it’s not a new member of the Flight of the Conchords group, which already include performers with the pseudonyms of the Hiphopopotamus and the Rhymenoceros. No, the Kangahippomouse is the thing above. Mark Frauenfelder has blogged an entry entitled “Mystery creature photographed in Seattle — a kangahippomouse?” over at Boing Boing. A reader at BB recently sent in a photograph (above) of this whatever: “Just outside of Seattle, WA my roommate Ed recently took a photo of this . . . thing.” Mark is looking for help in identifying it. My first thoughts ran to that of the naked [...]