Pop Culture

Pondering the Mawas Situation

With the death of Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, 84, one of the fathers of Cryptozoology, on August 22, 2001, we lost more than a cryptozoologist. Indeed, a philosopher departed the scene. I have often wondered what he would say to all the interest and modern internet talk about the Malaysian Mawas and/or Bigfoot situation. As I look at his lover Alika Lindbergh’s paintings of Heuvelmans, the single quotation that keeps coming to my mind, from my sensitive friend and fellow thinker, is this one: Cryptozoological research should be actuated by two major forces: patience and passion. – Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, Cryptozoology, [...]

El Chupa De Mayo

Today is El Cinco De Mayo (“The Fifth of May” in Spanish), which commemorates the defeat of the French army by the Mexicans led by General Ignacio Zaragoza at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. Many cities with significant Mexican and Chicano populations throughout the United States schedule special events on the 5th of May. It has been embraced as a day to celebrate Latino culture throughout Hispanic America, which, of course, today covers all of North America as well. Therefore, in our tip of the hat to El Cinco De Mayo, today we celebrate El Chupa De Mayo, in [...]

Mitchell River Monster?

Editor Lee Murdock of Fly Fishing Magazine brings to our attention North Carolina’s Mitchell River Monster. Noting a North Carolina author who is writing about unusual sightings in the Carolinas, Murdock writes… What caught my eye about this one was the mention of one of our area’s delayed harvest rivers coupled with the word monster: "One of the most compelling and frightening of the stories is that of the Mitchell River monster, a strange, unnaturally tall, violent creature that appears beside a calm stream – or, sometimes, next to Poplar Springs Road." The Mitchell River is located in Surry County [...]

New Mothman Documentary

Why is this man smiling? Should this man be smiling? What movie were these two below in? If you read the first man’s column today in the Charleston Daily Mail you’d probably discover that the second man might not be smiling because guy number one, Dave Peyton, miswrote the name of the movie based on John A. Keel’s book as The Mothman Chronicles. Of course, Keel’s book is The Mothman Prophecies and so is the Richard Gere and Laura Linney movie. (Nice shirt Ms. Linney has on. I’m lucky enough to have it for my museum, and that does make [...]

Why Bear Lake Again?

In a look at Water Babies and, of course, the Bear Lake Monsters, D. Robert Carter has written a new article in the Provo, Utah Daily Herald, entitled “Mysterious Monsters Inhabited Utah Valley Waters,” published, according to google news alerts, a little after midnight, local time, Sunday, April 30, 2006. The “Pawapicts, or Water Babies, whom native Americans believed inhabited the waters of Utah Lake, Provo River and other aqua pura” are said to come “in various shapes and sizes. Most Ute accounts agree that they had long black hair and cried like infants.” The stories overlap with Merbeing lore. [...]