Offline

I'll be offline for the next few days; but hope to be back sometime over the weekend. See you then!

The Montauk Thing

Here's the latest on the Montauk Thing, courtesy of The Anomalist:

Cryptid Washes Ashore at Montauk Cryptomundo. Loren Coleman, noted cryptozoologist, author and lecturer, was the first to alert us about this odd "creature," directing us to Gawker, where we found Dead Animal Washes Ashore in Montauk. Several hours later, Gawker followed up with Montauk "Dead Monster" Maybe Tied to Cartoon Network. So, we're still left wondering whether this is real or not. If it turns out to be a hoax, it wouldn't be the first, of course, as seen in Monkey from Mars: A Ga. Crime Lab's Museum Oddity.

Monsters Abound

As always, The Anomalist has good stuff to report:

'Bigfoot' Sighted in Remote Canadian Forest Telegraph. Reports of a recent Sasquatch sighting by berry pickers in northwestern Ontario, Canada, are receiving continued media coverage, as evidenced in this report. There's even more on the sighting, including some related photos, in Berry-Pickers Report Sasquatch Sighting and 'Looked 8 Feet Tall'. Meanwhile, Regan Lee at Trickster's Realm takes aim at skeptics in the overall search for Bigfoot with Bigfoot Fever: Bigfoot and the Skeptibunkers.

Ugly, Ugly, Ugly!

This, over at Cryptomundo, may turn out to have a prosaic explanation - or maybe not. Whatever the case, it's one ugly critter!

Crypto Various

Having been offline for the last few days, there's a few things to report, so I figured the best thing to do would be to place them all in one post - and here it is!

First, there's yet more Big Cat activity in the vicinity of Britain's Cannock Chase woods; then there's this on the recent "Yeti hair" developments; third, we have Loren Coleman with a fascinating post on Steller's Sea Ape; and don't miss Binnall of America on Black-Dogs.

Moving on, there's an interesting story on an alleged Brazilian werewolf.
And we have the following from The Anomalist:

"Sasquatch Sighting Has Grassy Narrows in a Buzz Kenora Daily & Miner. Two berry picking women spotted a tall, lanky, hairy humanoid and ran to tell others. Footprints were then found, large footprints with six toes. Casts were made of the prints. The incident took place Tuesday in Kenora, Ontario, Canada. With photo. At Cryptomundo, there's more on this report, including representative drawings, in New Ontario Sasquatch Track Find, and there's more on the July 2, 2000, Bigfoot encounter near the Oregon Caves in New Video: Matt Johnson's Bigfoot Encounter."

Ogopogo is in the news again; and Lisa Shiel discusses her Top 5 Controversies in Bigfoot Research.

Going Offline

I'll be off-line from now until Monday, when normal service will be resumed!

Chupa 1 and Chupa 2

Regan Lee looks at the controversy surrounding the Puerto Rican Chupacabras and the recent stories coming out of Texas.

Yeti Testing

As this new BBC story shows, potential evidence for the existence of the Yeti is to undergo scientific testing. At this stage, it seems that "wait and see" is the best approach to follow. Hopefully, it won't be too long before we hear something one way or another (thanks to Kithra for alerting me to this).

Crypto on the Radio...

For those who may be interested in listening, tomorrow night I'll be on the Shadows in the Dark radio show; and on Friday night I'll be on Beyond the Edge - talking about crypto, of course!

Over at the Anomalist....

Canada’s Coelacanth Cryptomundo. Could a bunch of huge, hairy, hirsute giants, be living unfound in America? Well, the story of the re-discovery of the wood bison should give anyone pause for the fact it has already happened. Loren Coleman explains the educational and ecotourism potential of the wood bison. But if you're yearning for some Classic Bigfoot Cases enjoy this excerpt from this 1971 old documentary, Bigfoot: Man or Beast.

Bigfoot, The FBI And More!

Very interesting indeed!

Reviewing Cryptozoology in the Movies

This looks to be a great new review-based blog from Neil Arnold (author of the excellent book Monster!): Cryptozoology in the Movies.

As Neil himself says in his press-release sent to me over the weekend:

*** THE WORLD'S FIRST REFERENCE GUIDE TO CRYPTOZOOLOGY IN THE MOVIES CAN BE FOUND AT:

http://www.cryptomovies.blogspot.com/

CREATED BY NEIL ARNOLD WHO CONSIDERS HIMSELF AN EXPERT ON SUCH FILMS AFTER YEARS OF COLLECTING A HUGE CRYPTO LIBRARY OF B-MOVIES, COMMERCIALS, FEATURES, BLOCKBUSTER FILMS, CULT FLICKS, CARTOONS IN RELATION TO SUCH MONSTERS SUCH AS BIGFOOT, YETI, LAKE & SEA MONSTERS, BIG CATS, WINGED BEASTS, WEREWOLVES, LIVING DINOSAURS.

THE BLOG IS AN EXTENSION OF TWO EXHAUSTIVE ARTICLES HE WROTE FOR 'ANIMALS & MEN' MAGAZINE AND HE HAS BEGUN A UNIQUE BOOK ON THE SUBJECT ALSO.

SO, IF ITS SCOOBY-DOO RUNNING FROM THE CHUPACABRAS, OR OVER-SIZED RABBITS EATING THE LOCALS, CRYPTOMOVIES IS FOR YOU ***

Anomalist News

Check out the following (thanks to The Anomalist) reported this weekend:

Scientist Seeks Biggest Freshwater Fish AOL News. In Thailand's Maeklong River lives the astonishingly large freshwater stingray. American biologist Zeb Hogan is angling for this species in an effort to eclipse the record for the largest freshwater fish, a record that currently belongs to the Mekong giant catfish. With photos and slideshow. Meanwhile, at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman takes exception with those who try to discredit a famed cryptozoologist by saying nothing the researcher wrote about in his most acclaimed book has ever been verified, as reported in The Reality of Post-Heuvelmans Discoveries, and at American Chronicle UFO researcher Steve Bass turns his attention to cryptozoology, briefly, to ask Is Bigfoot an Alien?

Investigating Lake Baikal

Siberia's Lake Baikal has a number of intriguing monster legends attached to it, as this article shows. It's also the world's deepest lake. And - as this new story demonstrates - scientists are about to descend to the absolute depths of the lake to learn more about its unique eco-system. It will be interesting to see if they learn much more too - and of a decidedly monstrous nature!

Ancient Monuments and High-Strangeness

As many of you will be aware, I have made mention here of the fact that on many occasions (particularly in the UK) cryptozoological beasts are seen in the vicinity of ancient and sacred sites.

Indeed, such stories are a central part of my new book, There's Something in the Woods.

And with that in mind, I'm very pleased to be able to present a guest-blog from Brian Haughton - author of the new book Haunted Spaces, Sacred Places: A Field Guide to Stone Circles, Crop Circles, Ancient Tombs, and Supernatural Landscapes - who touches upon such issues in the following paper:

Ancient Monuments, Sacred Landscapes
By

Brian Haughton

By exploring the ancient monuments and sacred landscapes of the world using a combination of archaeology, legend, and folklore, it is possible to obtain a unique insight into the hidden world of our ancestors. But what marked out a place as “sacred” or “special” in the mind of ancient man? There may have been a number of factors, varying from culture to culture and over different time periods.

One characteristic which must always have been of prime concern when constructing these ancient monuments or ritual complexes was the dividing up of the landscape, the separation of the sacred from the profane. Of course the place may have already possessed natural characteristics that made it unique. Recent research into geological anomalies and acoustics at ancient monuments is coming up with some interesting results. However, it seems more likely that it was something much less tangible, more “in the mind” of the inhabitants that made the place “special.”

Designing and building structures such as the ritual complex of monuments at Avebury in the UK, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, USA, and the standing stones at Carnac in northern France may have been a way of “monumentalizing” or enhancing this aura of sanctity, but it was the place itself that possessed the sacredness. The buildings acted as an expression of this sacredness. Often, nothing at all was constructed at a sacred site, its own personal myth-history being enough for it to be venerated (Ayers Rock in Australia is a good example of this).

In any attempt at understanding sacred places, perhaps a good way to begin is by examining some of the legends and lore that have become attached to the sites over time. However, the legends and even the archaeology of ancient sacred places are not sufficient in themselves for an understanding of how our ancestors viewed their sacred landscapes. In the words of American geographer Donald William Meinig “any landscape is composed not only of what lies before our eyes but what lies within our heads.”

To gain even the slightest insight into what was going through the minds of ancient peoples when they designed or visited monuments like the prehistoric temples of Malta or the vast Ohio Serpent Mound, we not only have to reunite ourselves with ancient values and traditions, but also attempt to cut ourselves off from our increasingly materialistic technology-based 21st century worldview.

The stories connected with ancient sites can take many forms, from legends at least a thousand years old, such as that of the wizard Merlin transporting the blue stones to Stonehenge, to modern accounts of UFOs and Bigfoot at, for example, Mount Shasta in California. There is a plethora of folklore connected with ancient sacred sites, especially the megalithic monuments of north Western Europe, a number of which are included in my new book, Haunted Spaces, Sacred Spaces.

The folklore of ancient places has become fairly standardized over the years: they are inhabited by fairies, built by giants or the Devil, haunted by ghosts, guarded by dragons, visited by spectral black dogs or cursed by witches. Stones are said to conceal buried treasure, dance at midday, walk down to a stream at midnight to drink, cause people to lose all sense of time and resist all attempts to move or to count them. The parallels between such folklore motifs and modern “paranormal” accounts reported at ancient monuments are obvious.

Indeed, whilst there is a significant record of folklore directly associated with ancient sacred places, the evidence for the occurrence of paranormal phenomena at these sites, reported in many books, Internet sites and magazine articles, is largely unconvincing. Additionally, much of the research into such phenomena is remarkably uncritical, and the conclusions premature to say the least. A good deal of the evidence for supposed “window areas,” places that apparently attract or produce strange phenomena, is either media generated or consists of exaggerations of local folk tales and legends, as is the case, for example, with a large part of the material related to the San Luis Valley, Colorado, Mount Shasta, California and to a certain extent Mount Penteli, just outside Athens in Greece.

However, in all of these areas there are some genuinely baffling elements to a few of the accounts collected, and this criticism does not mean to suggest that unexplained phenomena are never reported at ancient sites. But if the reports of strange lights, crop circles and bizarre creatures at ancient sacred places are indicative of anything, it is that these places are still regarded as significant enough to attract and generate myth and legend thousands of years after their construction. The important question is, whether these myths, ancient and modern, can tell us anything about the beliefs, ideas and motivation of our ancient ancestors. It is in this sense that ancient sacred sites may be viewed as windows into the past.

But just how reliable is folklore and myth as a guide to prehistory and history? Can legends shed any light on the construction and purpose of ancient sacred landscapes, such as at that around Stonehenge, and the ritual complex centered on Newgrange in Ireland? The majority of scholars of folklore and myth remain unconvinced that such tales can give us any genuine insights into the mind of ancient man. On many occasions the traditional tales surrounding prehistoric archaeological sites are “modern” (post 18th century), as with the tale of the Witch at the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire, UK. If this is the case then it is obvious that although the lore may reflect contemporary ideas about the monuments, which is in itself important, it can tell us nothing relating to the purpose of the site it is connected with.

Nevertheless, if research is undertaken combining folklore and legend with archaeology, as it was at Troy by Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th century, and is currently being done with the archaeology of Stonehenge and the story of Merlin and the blue stones, then perhaps we can begin to create a richer ancient past, one inhabited by people rather than merely their artifacts and buildings.

Real-Life Batmen

Here's a very interesting piece over at Cryptomundo concerning real-life Batmen, or winged-things, or whatever you want to call them!

Great Snakes!

Home Invasion!

Profiling a Bigfoot-Seeker

David Paulides's Bigfoot research in the media. Interesting reading!

Underground Monsters

The new issue of Fate magazine includes an article from me on mysteries of the London Underground subway-system. For years, rumors have been quietly told of encounters with strange beasts in the tunnels below Britain's capital - including spectral man-beasts, big-cats and more. If you're interested in cryptozoological stories of the underground kind, check it out!

Off-Line

I'll be off-line today, but back to normal tomorrow.

Brian Gaugler: New CFZ Representative

CFZ-USA is very pleased to announce our latest US representative: Brian Gaugler of New York. Brian will be covering his native New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. He will be digging deep into old cases, new ones, undertaking research, and filing case reports for readers of the CFZ's in-house magazine, Animals & Men.

Brian is also in the process of establishing the North-East Cryptid Initiative, an exciting project, the aim of which is to create a solid network of researchers who can share data, and stay informed of what is afoot in their respective areas.

Brian is particularly keen to hear from researchers in the North-East, and encourages anyone who may be able to help to contact him at: brian.gaugler@yahoo.com

If anyone else is interested in being a representative of the US Office of the CFZ (whether at state level, county level, or city level etc.), let me know and I can tell you more about the role of the reps.

Tuesday After Twilight

Tonight, at 9PM Central Time, I'll be on Tuesday After Twilight radio, speaking about my new book, There's Something in the Woods, and various other Fortean topics. Here's the link for those of you who might want to listen in.

Invading Insects of the Mysterious Kind...

Mysterious beasts invade London! (Okay, it's not quite as exciting as it sounds...)

Werewolves

If you're into werewolves, check out this fascinating interview at Raven's Mysterious Haven - you won't be disappointed!

The Almasty Team: Back in the UK

This was the latest on Saturday from Jon Downes about the Almasty expedition, who posted the following answer-phone message received from Richard:

"Hi Jon, this is Richard. We are in Moscow Airport at the minute - this is just a bit of an update. We have more hair, more dung, and what might be finger bones.We've spoken to, and interviewed, a lot more witnesses; we've staked out an amazing place that was a ruined restaurant that was built like a castle where one of these things is supposed to have scared off a bunch of policemen by screaming. There is loads of stuff on the camera traps, that we're bringing back, though I'm pretty certain most of it will be bats. Okay, I'll try and phone again a bit later on."

Well, the good news as of today is that the team is now back in Britain, and so we should have much more to report now they have returned, along with a wealth of data for analysis.

Adam Davies on the Almasty

A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to interview Adam Davies, author of the excellent new book, Extreme Expeditions, and a member of the team that just a few weeks ago headed off to Russia in search of the Bigfoot-like Almasty.

While Richard Freeman is still out there, Adam returned to England a couple of days before I interviewed him - and he had much to say about the beast, the expedition and more. And with that all said, here's the interview!

NR: Adam, what was it that got you involved in the Almasty expedition?

AD: In the first instance, I went down to the CFZ's Weird Weekend conference last year. Jon Downes invited me to do a talk on the Congo: I had been there looking for the Mokele-mbembe, as you know from my book. While I was there, I saw the talk by Grigoriy Panchenko on the Almasty; and I was really impressed by his depth of knowledge and research. So, I considered the idea of going.

AD: I then found out that Richard [Freeman] from the CFZ was also planning on going. So, Richard said: "Why don't we join forces and go?" It made sense, so that's what we did.

NR: And, for you, what were the big revelations and developments?

AD: As far as what we achieved, my view has always been that anything you find in field-research has to be independently, scientifically analyzed. That's the ultimate test for all of these things. Now, in terms of evidence, what we got first was eye-witness reports - some more credible than others. Some of it was anecdotes from old guys - such as an old guy telling us over his cognac how his dad saw an Almasty. But that's not much in the way of evidential value.

AD: But, we also spoke with a direct eye-witness, a guy called Tahir, who had seen an Almasty in 2005. His sheep were being disturbed, and he had seen this large Almasty watching him. So, we got a lot of good eye-witnesses of that sort. Interestingly, many of them described the Almasty as having this conical-shaped head, rather like the Yeti.

AD: We also found some evidence that can be analyzed properly: skull fragments and some strange bones found in caves. But what really excited me was in a place where there had been Almasty activity Dave Archer found a nest - what looked like a nest, and it didn't appear to have been made by any animal that I could recognize that was indigenous to the area. And we found around 20 hairs there which can be analyzed. And we can get the DNA extracted from them, too.

AD: But even if the evidence isn't conclusive, I've still learned a lot more about the Almasty, and about its numbers: there's probably between 100 and 300 of them in the area we were investigating. And if we went back again, we'd have a better opportunity. There's nothing wrong with armchair research, but my job is as a field researcher. That's what I'm into; and finding any evidence that can be analyzed scientifically. And I think the scientific community is starting to listen to us more now. There's a huge upswing in interest in cryptozoology.

AD: There was also a case we investigated of an Almasty seen at a barn in the area - which happened to be the scene of a triple-murder. You could hear the jackals howling, and it was well spooky! In 2005, a couple of shepherds had been sleeping in the barn. One had come outside, and there was an Almasty going for their food. It didn't attack the shepherd, but physically moved him from one place to another.

AD: On the first night when I was doing the stake-out with Dave, one of the Russians, Anatoly, claimed to have heard an Almasty calling; but I didn't hear that. But on the second night, me and Richard were doing a stake-out. On this occasion, both of us heard movement across the front of the barn, and we saw a large shape. You can imagine the adrenalin rush: we both rushed out, but the thing had gone. So, I can't say I saw an Almasty; and it's important to stress that. But there was a lot of interest and evidence around that barn - which was in the mountains.

NR: And based on the investigation, have you reached a personal conclusion as to what you think the Almasty is or isn't?

AD: I'd say I have a tentative conclusion; but that's partly going to be decided by what we get back from the analysis. I'd say there's certainly more of them than in, say, Mongolia. But it's a different sort of hominid. If there are pockets of something that were related to Homo Erectus, and that got pushed into remote areas and isolated geographically, then I don't see anything inconsistent with having pockets in different places that might mutate differently. For example, the Orang-Pendek is clearly a different creature from the Almasty.

AD: I really don't think it's Neanderthal in anyway though. I've never been a big fan of the Neanderthal theory for the Almasty. I think they are relic hominids; and I've always felt that. For example, I've never seen any evidence of them using tools or fire. And even if there was cultural recession, it wouldn't be to the extent where there would be no use of fire or tools at all, if these were Neanderthals. And if they were using fire, particularly at night, you'd see it in the mountains. But there's no evidence of that.

NR: Any final words on the expedition?

AD: It was definitely worth going. But, of course, it's always going to be difficult to prove anything in just 2 or 3 weeks. But the team as a whole, I think, would say we have learned a lot about the Almasty and its movements. And I would like to go back at some point.

Mark of the Beast?

Well, the British Big-Cat is still out and about and doing its thing - as this new story reveals.

The Daily Grail Interview

A new interview with me has just been posted to The Daily Grail. We discuss a lot of aspects of cryptozoology - the British Bigfoot, black-dogs and more. Here's an extract from one of my replies:

"I think it’s fair to say that as time has gone on, my views on what some of these cryptids are have drastically changed. Like a lot of people, I got interested in all this when I was a kid: my parents took me to Loch Ness when I was 5, and I was hooked even then. And back then, for me, Bigfoot was a giant ape, and Nessie was a plesiosaur. It was all just black-and-white.

"But, today – and for a long time now – my views are very different. Although many cryptozoologists roll their eyes and frown whenever anyone dares to suggest that Bigfoot might be anything other than mere flesh-and-blood, there’s no doubt in my mind that Bigfoot, the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabras, and many of these various 'things' are just too weird.

"They jam cameras, they vanish in the blink of any eye, we can never catch them, and sometimes they turn up in the same places as UFOs, or where other weird activity – such as poltergeist activity and even the Men in Black – is found.

"Now, I would say that at least some of these things are real, flesh-and-blood animals, such as Mokele-mbembe, Megalania, sea-serpents and such like. But Bigfoot, black dogs, many of the lake monsters, werewolves: these really are something from the outer edge, in my opinion."

You can read the rest of the interview right here.

Today's Crypto-News

Well, I've been tied up with one thing and another...and another...today, so it's just a quick post courtesy of The Anomalist, and business as usual tomorrow:


Website Users Share Lake Norman Monster Sightings Statesville.com Lake Norman, the largest lake in North Carolina, is believed by many area residents to be the home of a monster. What they're not sure of is what kind of monster it is. Is "Normie" a giant catfish, a catfish/carp cross, an alligator-type beast...or something else? In other monster reports today, there's the story of a mysterious creature believed to prowl Lancaster County, PA, as explained in Philadelphia Weirdness and from England there's a report of a New Big Cat Sighting. Meanwhile, Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo is reporting on a recent new image that emerged from the area around Mt. Hood. Check out the enlarged photo at New Bigfoot Photo? Is it a new picture of Sasquatch, or just a blobsquatch?

Shameless Self-Promotion Part 3: Winged Things

My new book, There's something in the Woods, contains a lot of data on a subject that I haven't really covered to any great extent before - giant winged-things, and particularly the Thunderbird of Native American Indian legend. Interestingly, two of the cases in the book concern sightings of huge, flying entities in the Nevada desert when the witness was in a peyote-induced altered state. Some might say "hallucination." Me? I prefer to think it's all about opening gateways to other realms...

The Mothman's Photographer II

Two night ago, I finished reading Andy Colvin's book, The Mothman's Photographer II. This is one of those books that is essential reading for those of you fascinated with Mothman.

Somewhat appropriately, and like the Mothman mystery itself, the book is full of all sorts of twists and turns, dark and disturbing scenarios, contains as many questions as it does answers, and definitely defies convention.

The book basically tells the very personal story of Colvin's interest in, and obsession with, the Mothman; something that began in his childhood in the sixties when he and his friends constructed a "shrine" to the Mothman - and after which strange and bizarre things began happening to Colvin, to his family, and to those around him.

In many ways, Colvin's book is more mind-bending than John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. But this is a good thing: rather than simply go over old ground, and recount the original story, Colvin describes for us how the Mothman personally affected, manipulated, and possibly guided, his own life experiences, right through to the present day.

And it's written in an appropriately unconventional style too: via interviews, transcripts, personal comments and thoughts, and more.For those who view Mothman as purely a crypto-zoological puzzle, you'll find yourselves at odds with Colvin, who places the creature in a very different category.

Essentially, Colvin views the Mothman as being akin to the Garuda - the majestic bird-like entity of Buddhist and Hindu mythology. Colvin's view is that the presence of the Mothman at the Point Pleasant, West Virginia bridge-collapse of 1967 (as described in Keel's book) was not in any way sinister.

Rather, Colvin sees the Mothman/Garuda as being basically a benign entity, and one that surfaces from its strange realm of existence at times of peril and strife, and when things are distinctly ill with the world. Part-helper, part-guide, it's inextricably linked with us - but generally for the better, Colvin believes.

But it's also a creature whose presence should not be taken lightly - nor should the fact that the creature's presence at Point Pleasant may have been tied in with a whole host of other activity, including classified government projects in the fields of mind-manipulations and psychotronics, synchronicities, the Men in Black, dark and tragic prophecies, the world of big-business, the military-industrial complex, and much more.

The Mothman's Photographer II is a fantastically strange trip into a world without rules, where just about anything goes, and where convention is thrown out of the window. But it works - and it works very well.

If you read the book, you are likely going to come away with a new view (or, at the very least, a modified view) of Mothman, thanks to a man who had the vision and guts to follow his instinct and present his data, ideas, theories and thoughts to those willing to listen.

And, given the fact that it seems the nature of Colvin's life was almost pre-destined from the day he first immersed himself in the world of the Mothman, perhaps he was meant to write the book. And perhaps we're all meant to read it. If so, Colvin has done us a great service in providing a book that is unique, unusual, riveting reading, and beyond thought-provoking.

Read and prepare to have your mind blown, bent, reorganized and, if you get the message, elevated, too.

A Researcher Dies

A sad passing in the world of mysterious "Big Bird" research.

Shameless Self-Promotion Part 2: Black Dogs

Without doubt the phantom black dog, or devil-dog, is one of more intriguing "creatures" of British folklore, history, mythology and cryptozoology. For the most part, at least, the black dog is perceived as being a beast of centuries-past. Every so often, however, a report will surface showing that the animal (or whatever it really is!) is still among us, still lurking in the shadows, and still up to its dark and disturbing antics.

My new book, There's something in the Woods, includes several recent reports of possible encounters with the elusive black dog - one in the UK and one in the United States. It seems that whatever the reason for its presence in our world, it still has work to do...

Almasty Interview

I just got off the phone with Adam Davies, author of the excellent book Extreme Expeditions, and one of the participants in the CFZ expedition to Russia in search of the Almasty. We discussed a wealth of fascinating data, including what the team discovered, Adam' s theories on what the Almasty might be, and much more. I should have the interview posted here by the end of the week.

Weekend Weirdness

As I was offline from Friday until late last night, here's a few things I missed, courtesy of The Anomalist:

Amomongo Hominoid Terrorizes Philippines Cryptomundo. Elias Galvez and Salvador Aguilar reported to Philippine authorities that they were separately attacked by a "hairy creature with long nails." The term amomongo is loosely translated as "gorilla." Elsewhere in the cryptid corner today, the cover says it all in a review of the New Bigfoot Book: The Hoopa Project; a restaurant owner says the panther he saw "was so black that it was blacker than night," as reported in New Black Panther Sighting: Maine; there's photographic evidence of another large felid where it isn't supposed to be in Methil's Mystery Prowler; and the uncanny abilities of some animals are examined in The Weird World of Mystic Mogs and Death-sensing Dogs. Meanwhile, don't forget to do your part to keep the doors to the International Cryptozoology Museum open with a donation to curator Loren Coleman using the email address lcoleman@maine.rr.com at PayPal.

The Medway Monster

Here's an interesting story brought to my attention by monster-hunter Neil Arnold: it deals with a large, eel-like creature seen swimming in England's River Medway. There is, as you'll see, some speculation that people were fooled by porpoises, but witness testimony seems to point in the direction of one, large animal, "30 feet long, dark brown and mottled gray in color."

Any updates on this, Neil?

The Almasty Latest

Here's some intriguing new data from Jon Downes on the CFZ quest to locate the Almasty:

"The camera traps have not yet revealed anything special, but one night, when Richard and Adam were in the barn they saw a huge shadow flit by the window. They rushed out onto the derelict balcony but it had gone. Adam wants me to stress that they DIDN'T see the Almasty. They merely saw a huge, man-shaped shadow in a place where the Almasty has been seen on many occasions. But it is good supporting evidence."

Let's hope that whatever the shadowy thing was, the team crosses paths with it again. And I'm sure that when Richard returns home, he'll have much more to say on this fascinating development.

Stay tuned!

Shameless Self-Promotion Part 1: Werewolves

As my new There's Something in the Woods book is now out there, it's time for a little more information about its content. One mysterious beast that has particularly fascinated me since I was a little kid is the werewolf - primarily because it seems to forever straddle the worlds of cryptozoology and the paranormal, and may paradoxically have a foot (or a paw...) in both camps.

I've investigated a lot of werewolf reports over the years - both in the UK and in the US. And There's Something in the Woods details my most recent forays into the world of all-things large, hairy and wolfish - including several intriguing reports from Britain's Cannock Chase woods, and a particularly weird story from the United States that eerily echoes the Hexham Heads saga of 1972.

So, if werewolves are your thing, check it out!

MY NEW BOOK: THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WOODS

Well, we ended up getting home a bit early from the July 4th weekend; and as this is the same weekend that my new book - There's Something in the Woods: A Transatlantic Hunt for Monsters and the Mysterious - is published, I figured I might as well go ahead and tell you about it now.

Published by Anomalist Books, it covers my cryptozoological investigations and monster hunts that took place over the course of the last two years.

In early 2006, my wife, Dana, and I moved back to jolly old England to live, and remained there until August of that year - after which we returned to sun-drenched Dallas.

So, basically, the book - as its sub-title demonstrates - is a personalized account of the many and varied crypto-driven exploits and adventures that I embarked on in that same period - on both sides of the Atlantic, and sometimes with a bemused and amused Dana along for the ride.

And what, you may ask, does the book contain?

Well, for Anglophiles, you get much on the British Bigfoot; the Werewolf of England's Cannock Chase woods; strange creatures summoned up within the confines of Crop Circles via ancient rite and ritual; the Devil-Dogs of centuries-past; big-cats; giant snakes; and a dizzying array of other beasts.

And States-side, you will will find a wealth of new material on the Thunderbird and other mysterious winged-things; the American Werewolf; Sasquatch; the Texas Goat-Man; monstrous insects; and much, much more.

Expect much more here on the book over the course of the next few weeks.

July 4th

I'm signing off now for the July 4th holiday, but will be back early Monday morning with some big news. Stay tuned!

A British Big Cat: From the 1960s...

As many readers of this blog will know, I have regularly posted stories here that relate to sightings of unknown animals and out-of-place animals on - and in the vicinity of - Britain's Cannock Chase woods.

Here's the latest, which includes the details of some interesting and previously-unseen witness testimony.

But what's particularly notable about this story is that it includes data on a big cat seen in the area in 1965.

Of course, this was long before the bulk of reports began to surface in the late 70s and early 80s (the Surrey Puma and a few others aside, of course); and obviously begs the question: how long have big-cats been roaming around the British Isles?

Maybe for a very long time...

Not Exactly Crypto, But...

...it does deal with some extraordinary animals.

Great Snakes!!!!

Can it be true?! Is a 600-foot-long Anaconda about to solve Britain's energy problems?! See for yourselves...

Bigfoot For Kids

If you have young kids, and they're interested in Bigfoot, here's a book you might want to get them.

On the Road...

On the road right now, but normal service will resume tomorrow...

"On the Track" Episode 10

Episode 10 of the CFZ's online, monthly magazine, On the Track, has just been posted to YouTube: