20,000 Leagues Director Dies

Richard Fleischer, who directed the 1954 sci-fi movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, has died of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, on March 25, 2006. He was 89. Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is best remembered by cryptofiction fans for its famed scene of the giant squid attacking Captain Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilaus, a major motion picture achievement of its day. The movie was based on Jules Vernes science fiction story of the same name, which was based on true reports of cryptid-style encounters with the giant squid or Kraken. The [...]

Dragons in Paris

An exhibition and exposition on “Dragons: Science and Fiction” has been announced at the Museum of Natural History in Paris [Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle à Paris (36 rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire)] from April 5 though November 6, 2006. Their website can be found by clicking here. Beaucoup de mercis French cryptozoologist Michel Raynal, for this news.

Head of Quagga Project Dies

The founder of the Quagga Project, South African taxidermist Reinhold E. Rau has died. Rau, who spent thirty years attempting to breed back into existence the quagga, an extinct zebra and nearly achieved it, died last month at his home in South Africa. Rau was born on February 7, 1932, and died on 12 February 12, 2006. Reinhold E. Rau at the South African Museum, a natural history museum in Cape Town, with the stuffed quagga foal that became the focus of his project. As Bernard Heuvelmans mentioned in his famed checklist of 1986, there continue to be reported sightings [...]