Year In Review

Zorgy Awards Announced

I have really enjoyed reading your blog postings. Obviously, law school was not wasted on you. If your postings are any indication, your forthcoming book will be a welcome breath of fresh air, not to mention a delight to read.~ the late Karl Pflock, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, speaking of Paul Kimball’s blog, “The Other Side of Truth”. The Zorgy Awards for 2007 and thus the 2008 inductees to The Other Side of Truth Halls of Shame and Fame have just been announced on this early Monday, March 24, 2008. No doubt due to the heavy voting by [...]

50th Anniversary: Slick Begins Snowman Search

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Tom Slick’s most organized, first San Antonio Zoo-sponsored expedition in search of the Yeti. It was formally called the Slick-Johnson Snowman Expedition. Via a feature giving a flashback of 50 years ago, the Los Angeles Times reprinted an old Matt Weinstock column, from the reporter who was sort of the “Herb Caen of Los Angeles.” In this passage, Weinstock talked of the Abominable Snowman and Tom Slick, thus giving a good period view of one newspaper columnist’s way of dealing with the event. Matt Weinstock (You gotta love Weinstock’s 1950s’ haircut.) The following [...]

Galveston Mothman?

In her blog this week, Ha’ri writes in “Mothman – Sighting in Galveston?” of her wonderings and ponderings. She is interested to discover if any large bird-like somethings were seen before any hurricanes hit the coastal Texas city of Galveston. Ha’ri does some research, and rightfully comes to the conclusion there’s nothing to be easily found about a 1969 hurricane – or Mothman sightings there. In the movie The Mothman Prophecies, news articles about the “Houston Batman” were flashed on the screen as the character “Alexander Leek” (“Keel” backwards) talked of how Mothmen were seen before disasters like “the hurricane” [...]

Cryptozoology Futurology

Yes, I have turned up in this new book, What’s Next: The Experts’ Guide: Predictions from 50 of America’s Most Compelling People by Jane Buckingham. I am one of the fifty “most compelling people” in the country. I’m still trying to explain what that means to my sons. I do like the company I get to keep in the pages of this tome, which has just hit the bookstores. What’s Next takes cryptozoology seriously. It contains my next decade’s predictions about where I see the field going and what animals I feel will be discovered. I won’t spoil this author’s [...]

Thompson’s Sea Serpent Hunt

One thing leads to another. Looking into the new mystery photo postcard has taken me to more of the backstory that involves a Sea Serpent hunt exactly 100 years ago. In 1908, a Little River couple on an outing on Biscayne Bay reported seeing a sea serpent with a 30-foot-long body and a long, slender neck. An intrepid and well-known fisherman, Capt. Charles Thompson, set off after the sea monster. Thompson was certainly the man for the job: He had fished with four U.S. presidents and powerful industrialists such as John Jacob Astor and William Vanderbilt. Even the Miami Metropolis [...]

Bird Picks Up Boy

Why does that headline looks vaguely familiar? What may be inside of us, almost at a genetic level, that remembers such incidents? I’m not talking about the Lawndale, Illinois, case of Marlon Lowe being picked up by one of two large birds, then dropped. That took place in Logan County in April of 1977. Instead, I’m reminded of my sense that there is a new such event due, by reading about an earlier case, highlighted recently by anomalist Scott Maruna. Maruna posted his finding of a copy of an old article about a bird identified as an eagle picking up [...]

Still Unsolved: Mystery Fish Postcard Photo

Despite speculations, theories, thoughts, rumors, ideas, hypotheses, and claims, this longest standing mystery at Cryptomundo has never been fully solved. The postcard photo, originally sent to me by Phyllis Mancz of Ohio, has become such an enigmatic icon that it became part of the design on the front of my new edition of Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures. The Mystery Fish postcard, first noted here on November 29, 2005, has never been identified, as to exact location or species. New people sometimes have new ideas. Lots of new readers may [...]

Nazis & The Search for Yeti

Heinrich Harrer in Tibet. I got to first thinking about Nazis, Tibet, and Yeti, three years ago, when I heard that famed mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, 93, died on January 7, 2005. The entire story does feel like it is straight out of Indiana Jones, of course. Movies are often a point of reference, needless to say. Harrer was portrayed by Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet, a 1997 movie based on Harrer’s 1953 nonfiction memoir with the same title. But sometimes the movies leave out the best parts. Harrer’s interest in what today we mostly know as the lore [...]

Nazi Raccoons

In 1934, Hermann Goering, then head of the Reich Forestry Office, gave permission for the release of a pair of common American raccoons (Procyon lotor) into the German wilderness to enrich the fauna. It has resulted in today’s furry blitzkrieg. Due to the recent discussions here of raccoons in the Yucatan and escaped pet raccoons taking over Japan, I share revelant historical and contemporary highlights from a Deutsche Welle article about “Nazi” raccoons. The link to the complete news item is at the end of this detailed overview of this alien invasion. They’re actually American but feel right at home [...]