Pop Culture

Nonfiction Stephen King

Loren Coleman of Portland talks about cryptozoology, or the study of unknown and undiscovered animals, on Saturday, July 5, 2008, at Fort Knox. (Bangor Daily News/Bridget Brown) Over the weekend, unbeknownst to me, the Bangor Daily News ran an online article about the conference being held up at Prospect, Maine. Here’s part of what they had to say online and in their newspaper today (I couldn’t help myself, however, as I’ve corrected the various wrong ways the paper spelled “Bigfoot”): Loren Coleman, often referred to as “Maine’s nonfiction Stephen King,” sat behind a table filled with models and artwork of [...]

Look What They Did At Loch Ness

The legend of the Loch and its mysterious inhabitant has captured the imagination of millions of people worldwide for generations. Now the ancient myth is brought to life to celebrate the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Waterhorse: Legend of the Deep on 30th June 2008. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ “Save The Museum”: Easy-to-use donation buttons are now available here or merely by clicking the blank button below. Thanks everyone!

South China Tiger Photos Fake

Late on Sunday, June 29, 2008, the Chinese news service Xinhua is confirming that the controversial photographs of a rare South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) in the wild are fake. Cryptomundo first discussed this news on October 14, 2007, and our readers knew what was what, right away. At Cryptomundo, the photos were declared a fakes on November 22, 2008. The photos were fabricated by farmer Zhou Zhenglong, Shaanxi Provincial government officials said on Sunday. Zhou, 54, from Zhenping county, claimed to have photographed the tiger with a digital camera on the afternoon of Oct. 3 last year, but [...]

Volkswagen-Sized Catfish

Famed natural history artist Alexis Rockman painted the cover of the 2001 edition of Mysterious America depicting a real encounter he and his cryptozoology expedition associates had with a giant catfish in the Amazon. The new edition of Mysterious America contains a chapter on “Giant Catfish” sightings, which continue throughout North America and elsewhere in the world. These tales overlap with swamp monster encounters, lake monster ponderings, and weird animal happenings. Giant catfish do exist, which is a fact not in dispute. The question is how “giant” does “giant” get and where are they living today. In an article today [...]

Longing for Linsangs

What is one of the world’s rarest carnivores? It’s the linsang. But what’s a linsang? Of the figurine collection above, can you pick out the linsang? (The answer is below, as I share images of almost a dozen of these animal replicas for this discussion, in the last third of this posting.) During my trek in pursuit of replicas of the most unusual cryptids and animals, I made an amazing discovery of this scarce animal and its kin modeled as hand-painted small figurines. How is it that an animal so near extinction but unknown generally would have a replica made [...]