Fresno Bee, February 19, 1928

People have been seeing what they think are sauropods (or in the popular mind, dinosaurs) for a long time in Africa. More recent eyewitness accounts, of course, are still being recorded. Take cryptozoologist Adam Davies, who authored a Fortean Times article (April 2001) on his expedition. He says it all in his title, “I thought I saw a Sauropod, ” and his report is easily found online, here.

Zanesville Signal, November 29, 1925

Some future summaries are in store for next year. Chad Arment mentioned in a recent blog that 2007 could be a good year for more information on dinosaur hunting in Africa. He wrote there may be…

…two separate books reviewing Mokele-mbembe expeditions coming out in 2007. Bill Gibbons is working steadily on one, which should be available from Coachwhip Publications [this is Arment's company] during the first half of the year. A second cryptozoological author is also working on a book on the subject (but as I don’t know if that is common knowledge, I’ll just note that it’s in the works, to be published by another press)….

Bill G[ibbons] is planning to revisit Africa on another expedition in 2008. They’ve had some interesting finds on trips in the last few years, which I’m sure will be noted in the forthcoming book.

Fort Wayne Sentinel, April 20, 1916

In the meantime, the archival scans of old items, showing a hint of an Art Deco influence in monster hunting, are pictured here of a few 1910s-1920s articles on living dinosaurs. These come from Crypto’s Craig Heinselman and give a hint of how extensive such media attention was back then. In many ways, there is an indication that it “felt” like a dinosaur might be found alive any day in the 1920s, in Africa or South America. Expeditions were actively looking for the prehistoric reptiles in the Roaring Twenties, sometimes with suprisingly successful results from respected research teams.

Syracuse Herald, May 15, 1921

In 1920, the Smithsonian Institution sent a 32-man expedition to Africa, which found unexplained tracks along the riverbank and heard mysterious “roars.”- in “Dinosauria” section of The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep.