Pop Culture

Steve Irwin Killed

“I have no fear of losing my life. If I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it.” – Steve Irwin Steve Irwin who once devoted time in the hunt for the Thylacine has been killed. Crikey! Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday, September 4, 2006, by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44. Irwin was at Batt Reef, off the remote coast of northeastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series [...]

The Silver Bridge: How Many Died?

Mothman mysteriously appeared and for 13 months was seen in a Banshee-like wave of sightings. Then the Silver Bridge fell. Maybe there’s a connection, maybe there isn’t. With all due respect, do you know how many died in that tragedy? Why have my buddies at the Fortean Times forgotten to fact-check this significant detail before publishing a Letter to the Editor about it? Bill Rebsamen’s image of the Mothman created for the cover of my book on the subject. In the new issue of the Fortean Times, # 214, for October 2006, on page 71, in a letter entitled “Silver [...]

Injun Devils

There are many offensive terms for different kinds of people. The list is long. One phrase that you will find in old records and some modern ones, denoting Native Americans or American Indians, is “Injun.” The exact origins of “Injun” are lost in time, but dictionaries will tell you that the word seems to have surfaced in 1805-1815, as a variation of “Indian,” through assibilation (the act of changing a name by pronouncing it with a hissing or whistling sound). Scholarly sources even compare “Injun” to what happened in 1875-1880, to those who settled in Louisiana and Maine, descended from [...]

Menagerie of Three: Beast, Blunders, and Bradley

Your humble Cryptomundo cryptozoologist Loren Coleman examines the carcass of the beast or more correctly, what is left of it. In the background are, from left to right, Michelle O’Donnell and Debi Bodwell. This is a Sun Journal photograph by Douglas Van Reeth. Used by permission. Click to enlarge. The August two weeks of the Maine Mutant’s silly season have passed. Surprisingly, the media aftermath has been mild. I noticed on Friday, August 25, 2006, in California, John Boston’s (a/k/a Mr. Santa Clarita Valley) column in The Signal, “Where’s a Hairy MH When You Need One?”, attempted to be humorous, [...]