Saturday, May 29, 2010

The Beast of Bodalog Remembered

One of the very first on-location investigations of the cryptozoological kind I ever undertook occurred in the latter part of 1988, when a very strange beast briefly surfaced in Wales and, equally-briefly, sent the locals and the media into a frenzy.

One of the days, I intend on writing up my original notes prepared at the time of the investigation (I was out there for 3-days and nights, looking for the thing). But, in the meantime, there's a summary of the affair in my latest Lair of the Beasts column at Mania.com.

Friday, May 28, 2010

The Critters of Texas...

When I first moved to Texas (almost a decade ago!) my view of the Lone Star State was that it was all desert, cactus and tumbleweeds. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that East Texas was heavily forested, and was home to a veritable menagerie of wildlife. As evidence of this, I thought I'd share with you a few images of Texas critters that aren't cryptozoological in nature, but that are definitively zoological and which were taken in our back garden (on the fringes of Dallas, Texas) over the course of approximately the last couple of years. They're certainly not what I was accustomed to seeing back in England!















Monsters Everywhere!

As always, good stuff over at The Anomalist:

Cryptids of DownEast Cryptomundo. Loren Coleman gives a short lead in to the June edition DownEast Magazine article by Rob Sneddon entitled Mysteries of Maine that includes more than just cryptids among the phenomena revealed. But, in Lindsay Selby's latest report, a cryptid is the focal point of stories emanating from the Andes Mountains of South America. Selby brings you news of a Bigfoot-type creature South Americans have reported since, at least, 1956, as she details in The Ucu. Do the Andes have their own Yeti?

Muirhead's Mysteries: Thunderbird Nests in Utah? Cryptozoology Online. Richard Muirhead reviews an account from a 1960 edition of Frontier Times that tells of a 1936 expedition across the Great Salt Lake Desert of Utah, tracing the trail of the ill-fated Donner Party in 1850. Dr. Walter M. Stookey was the man who traced the Donner trail, and what he found makes for some surprising conclusions. While Dr. Stookey's retracing of the trail took place 86 years after the Donner's passed by, there was much evidence of the Donner Party's trek, including discarded trunks and clothing, wagon parts and the skeletal remains of oxen. But what was most surprising was the discovery of giant bird nests, an astonishing discovery that still hasn't been explained. Elsewhere, a Texas town is up in arms after reports of an out-of-place African big cat, as seen in Reports of Lion Loose in Marshall, Residents React. Meanwhile, Scott Bowen speaks with the head of the International Cryptozoology Museum, one of the world's foremost cryptozoologists, in Interview: Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, Part 1. With image.

Monsters of Texas - Almost Ready...



Coming very soon from Jon Downes and the good chaps at CFZ Press is a new book from myself and fellow creature-seeker, Ken Gerhard titled Monsters of Texas: Strange Creatures of the Lone Star State. There's no release date as yet, but it will be available in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the back cover blurb for the book reads thus:

"Texas - or the Lone Star State, as it is affectionately and widely known - is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, and contains both colorful and majestic landscapes that range from desert to plains, and forest to wild canyons.

"But that is not all: all across Texas there lurks a wide array of monsters, mysterious beasts and diabolical creatures that science tells us do not exist – but that a significant percentage of the good folk of Texas certainly know otherwise.

"In Monsters of Texas, you will learn a great deal about countless bizarre critters, including the following:

"Giant winged-things: feathered batmen, huge birds, pterodactyl-like beasts, and glowing-eyed gargoyle-style entities that haunt the Texas-Mexico border; Texas’ very own version of Puerto Rico’s infamous vampire-like monster, the Chupacabras; Blood-thirsty, predatory werewolves said to be roaming the wilds of Texas by the eerie light of a full moon; Texan equivalents of the famous Loch Ness Monster of Scotland: water-based beasts of unknown origin and identity that occasionally surface from the murky depths; The legend of the hairy wild-man, and wild-woman, of the Navidad that struck terror into the minds and souls of the people of the area way back in the 1800s; Encounters of the distinctly Bigfoot kind in central and east Texas; as well as in the state’s legendary and mysterious Big Thicket woods; Out-of-place animals: those creatures that are found within the Lone Star State, yet that have apparently strayed – sometimes inexplicably so - far away from their normal habitats; Those truly ominous beasts that may be far less than flesh-and-blood in nature, and far more paranormal and supernatural in origin; The diabolical, cloven-hoofed Goat-Men that haunt the dark woods of Lake Worth, the old Alton Bridge at Denton, and Dallas’ White Rock Lake."

Keep watching this space, and I'll update you just as soon as I have more information on the publication date.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

At the Anomalist...

Over at The Anomalist today you can find the following:

Bigfoot: Keeping an Eye Out for Spotsy Sasquatch Fredericksburg.com
Reports from Spotsylvania County Virginia, around the area of Lake Anna, supposedly indicate the possible presence of a Bigfoot that has been leaving occasional signs of its presence since May, 2009, when three people claimed to have sighted the creature. Now Billy Willard and various investigating teams from Sasquatch Watch of Virginia have been searching for the creature in a 96-acre section bordered by 3,000 acres of forest. Elsewhere, Tania Poole interviews Australian resident Josie Harris about big cats, bunyips, yowies and thylacines in Tales from the Antipodes.

Animal Forteana

Regan Lee has set up a new blog that promises good things in relation to the Fortean aspects of the zoological and cryptozoological worlds. As you'll see, there are a number of interesting posts there already, including the strange tale of a close encounter of the weird-deer kind...

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Scott Herriott on Bigfoot Quest

From Bob and Mike at Bigfoot Quest:


Hello Friends:

Please join your hosts Bob Coyne and Mike Killen as we welcome Scott Herriott to the show. Scott's interest in Bigfoot began at a young age when he saw the PG film and read the book "Year of the Sasquatch" written by John Green. He's been active in field research for close to 25 years now. He first became involved after seeing a CNN story about bridge builders who were scared away from a work site in the High Sierras in 1986. The next year he investigated the encounter area and has been at it ever since. Scott had his own personal unexplained encounter in 1992 along the Klamath River while investigating another encounter report. If you can, please join us in our live show chat. It's always a lot of fun and we love to interact live with our listeners.

Where: www.blogtalkradio.com/Bigfoot_Quest

When: Tonight, Tuesday May 25, 2010

Time: 9:00 P.M. Eastern

Duration: 90 Minutes

The Problem of Nessie

Lindsay Selby has a new post that details the many and varied reasons why it has proven so difficult to confirm the presence of something anomalous in Loch Ness. She says:

"People often say to me Why has nothing conclusive been found at Loch Ness? There are lots of reasons. One is that although the Loch is 23 miles long, large parts of it are not viewable because of trees, bushes etc around it and some parts are not easily accessible as to do so means scrambling down very steep banks. I have put on a photo here to show that even in winter it is still not easy to view through the trees.( it is a bit wonky as I was standing on a slope) People who have never visited the Loch often scoff that no one has yet got a decent photo but they don’t realise how difficult a task that is."

And here's Lindsay's full post.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Monsters at The Anomalist

Today's Anomalist has a great selection of crypto-stories today:

Bigfoot: Alive and Living in Greater Minnesota? KSAX
The Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Society has received more than 75 reports of sightings, captured images, and Bigfoot footprints in just three years. Among the signs of Bigfoot's existence they cite "wood knocking" responses, branches plucked straight out of trees, strange looking shelters, and stick men to warn other Bigfoot of humans in the area. Texas, specifically East Texas, has also had its share of Bigfoot reports. And about 300 people recently gathered in Tyler for a Bigfoot Conference to share their personal confrontations with the creature: East Texans recall encounters with Bigfoot.

Schoolgirl Comes Face To Face With 'Black Panther' This Is Gloucestershire There's a big mystery in the Forest of Dean near Ruspidge, UK. Local residents have reported many big cat sightings there throughout the years. The latest witnesses, two young girls playing in the woods, were startled to find a large cat napping under a tree. Seen in broad daylight, the animals was described as black all over with big eyes and paws and a long tail. The girls were more than alarmed when it began to follow them along the path home.

Explosive Month of Mothman Mayhem Cryptomundo
These last four weeks have seen a number of side events, according to Loren Coleman, that point to the winged weirdie of Point Pleasant: a death, the name game, some giant owls, and news about the TNT area where the Mothman was seen. The question is indeed, what's next? Also at Cryptomundo, news of the International Cryptozoology Museum in New York Discovers Cryptozoology and MQ Donates Props to ICM.

Living Mammoths?

As some of you may know, I have a big interest (er...perhaps even a big obsession) in the tales and stories relative to still-living Mammoths. Nonsense? Exaggeration? Hoaxes? Or, astonishingly, the literal truth? Well, those are the big questions! There's no doubt, however, that there's a surprisingly large body of witness-testimony on surviving Mammoths. But, like the bodies from Roswell, no-one has yet delivered the goods!

I wrote a small article on this subject for my Lair of the Beasts column at Mania.com some time ago (which can be found here). But, now, Lindsay Selby has prepared a more extensive piece that makes for great reading.

Lindsay says: "There have been many tales about living Mammoths. This is in part due I am sure to the fact that some frozen specimens found look as if they died recently as they are so fresh. With scientists talking about regenerating a mammoth clone ala Jurassic Park, I thought I would dig up dome of the living mammoth stories. In the 1580's the Stroganoff family sent a band of Cossacks to hunt down a group of bandits in Siberia that had been stealing from their mines there. The leader of the expedition, Yermak Timofeyevitch, reported that beyond the Ural Mountains he met a 'large, hairy elephant.' The natives told him that the Kingdom of Sibir considered the giant animals a part of its wealth; they were valued as food and called 'mountains of meat.' In 1873 an article appeared in the Zoologist containing an interview with Cheriton Batchmatchnik, a Russian convict who escaped from Siberia who claimed to have encountered living Mammoths in a valley of the Aldan mountains."

And here's the link to the rest of Lindsay's post.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Anomalies!

From today's Anomalist:

Orangs and Yetis at All Sizes Cryptozoology Online. The orang pendek is frequently singled out as the cryptid most likely to be discovered next, says Dale Drinnon, yet there is more than one kind of creature being reported under that name. This has caused some researchers to think that the orang pendek is related to the Flores "Hobbits." Both large and small orang pendek have been reported on Sumatra and Borneo, known orangutan habitats. Could the large and small orangs (sedapas, or orang gugus) and the large and small 'yetis' be genetically-isolated offshoots of the known orangutans? Elsewhere, Loren Coleman asks Where Are The Black Florida Panther Photos?

Monday, May 17, 2010

Serpents and the Navy

Just recently, one of my Lair of the Beasts columns over at Mania.com was devoted to the British Government's files on the Loch Ness Monster (here's the link).

It seems, however, that as interested as the Government has certainly been in Nessie at times, that interest is not reflected by Britain's Royal Navy, who confirm that while sailors may, theoretically, wish to report a sighting of a sea-serpent while sailing the oceans, there is no official "Sea Serpent File," or official mandate to collect reports...

Big Cat Conundrum

Loren Coleman has a highly thought-provoking new post on what might happen if you should be in a position to kill one of those out-of-place big cats....

A Black Dog Story...

Not a new case, but for devotees of ghostly black dog lore, you won't want to miss this one!

Coming Very Soon...




MONSTERS OF TEXAS...

Friday, May 14, 2010

A Diary of the Daintree Kind




If, like me, you're into entertaining road-trip-style books that take you to far-off places, and encounters withe exotic creatures, captivating landscapes, and much more, then Carl Portman's A Daintree Diary is the book for you!

Containing a mountain of cool and enchanting photographs, Carl's title is a genuinely engaging look at what happens when he and his partner, Susan, and their friend Angela, head off to the wilds of the North Australian rainforest in search of all-things animalistic and unusual.

Rather like a combination of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-meets-Jurassic Park-meets-The Crocodile Hunter, Daintree takes you into the very heart of an on-the-road quest for high-strangeness, high-adventure, and high-entertainment!

Written in an engaging, diary-format, Daintree is a book that will be relished by anyone and everyone who can appreciate what it means to live life to its fullest, who can understand the adrenalin-rush that comes from heading into realms unknown on adventure-filled quests, and who has a passion for the stranger aspects of zoology.

Packed with humor, excitement, danger, and mystery, Carl Portman's A Daintree Diary was a book that kept me transfixed from the first page to the very last. I strongly suspect that it will do likewise for you!

After all: how can you turn up your nose at whistling spiders, giant catfish, the Thylacine and more? That's right: you can't!!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

A Lion in Scotland?

Is a female lion on the loose in Scotland? Or, is it something else? Whatever the answer, it's big, four-legged and running around!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Oarfish News

Raven has a good new post on a breaking Oarfish story...

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A Sussex Thing

Neil Arnold details a truly strange, centuries-old story from the English county of Sussex. A deformed person? A myth? Who knows?

Monday, May 10, 2010

Roosevelt & Cryptozoology

Loren Coleman highlights a fascinating tale of a president and unknown beasts...

Lake Monsters 1 & 2!

Lindsay Selby has new posts on two Scottish lake-monsters: the creature of Loch Morar; and the beast of Loch Major.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Sea-Serpents in Danger

Good friend Ken Gerhard has a new post at his blog titled Oil Spill May Threaten Gulf Sea Serpents...

In part, Ken says: "The ominous specter of a massive oil spill looms over the Gulf of Mexico. I can’t help but to have a sick feeling about its potential impact on the abundant wildlife that inhabits its depths. Corals, sponges, crustaceans, fish, birds and countless other life forms depend on an ecological balance that is being thrown into turmoil as, mankind’s reckless abandon rears its ugly head. If history is any indicator, there might be an extraordinary animal swimming deep, within those waters. A creature that is known primarily from legends dating back thousands of years."

Read on!

Neil Arnold's Latest

Neil Arnold on a very weird saga, indeed...

Part 1 and Part 2.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Bigfoot in Texas

From today's Anomalist:

Searching for Sasquatch Here in South Texas WOAI. Bigfoot investigators Troy Hudson and Chase Robinson are convinced the legendary creature is out there somewhere in Northwest side of San Antonio, Texas. Trailing leads posted by hundreds of witnesses over the years, the two recently hunkered down in Garner State Park, near the town of Leakey, to try and validate their belief. Often confronted by nay-sayers and unbelievers, the two have a simple suggestion before you dismiss the sightings of so many honest and frightened people - go out with them and experience what they have and you might just change your mind.

Jersey Devil News

Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman reveals the latest news on the ever-enigmatic Jersey Devil...

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Boggy Depot Bigfoot Conference



It's a while away yet, but on the weekend of October 22/23, I'll speaking at the 2010 Boggy Depot Bigfoot Conference, which will be held at the Boggy Depot State Park, Atoka, Oklahoma. Good friend Ken Gerhard will also be lecturing.

Also speaking are:

R.Scott Nelson - Crypto-Linguist;
Randy Harrington - Bigfoot Researcher, M.A.B.R.C.;
Cullen Hudson - Author/Researcher;
C.O.P.S. - Paranormal Research Group;
Mike Hall - Bigfoot Field Researcher, Texla Research Group.

As you'll see from the poster above, the event is in aid of a couple of very good charities, so if you can make it along that weekend, you'll get to learn a great deal about Bigfoot, and also help a couple of very worthy causes.

Get your tickets while you still can!

For more information, contact: boggydepotbigfoot@yahoo.com

Sabre-Toothed Cats

Another good post from Lindsay Selby: this one on the issue of possibly-still-surviving sabre-toothed cats...

Monday, May 3, 2010

South American Monsters

Lindsay Selby has an interesting new post on unidentified animals in South America, which in part states:

"There have been reports since the 1800’s of living dinosaurs in Bolivia and other South American countries. At the end of the 19th century Scientific American recorded the following remarkable events: "The Brazilian Minister at La Paz, Bolivia, had remitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Rio photographs of drawings of an extraordinary saurian killed on the Beni after receiving thirty-six balls. By order of the President of Bolivia the dried body, which had been preserved in Asuncion, was sent to La Paz." The "monster" was reported to be twelve meters long (39 ft) from snout to point of the tail, which latter was flattened. It’s head resemblance the head of a dog and its legs were short, ending with formidable claws. The legs and abdomen sported a kind of scale armour, and all the back is protected by a still thicker and double cuirass, starting from behind the ears of the anterior head, and continuing to the tail. The neck is long, and the belly large and almost dragging on the ground."( "A Bolivian Saurian," Scientific American, 49:3, 1883.)

"It sounds like a crocodile like species but reports continued to trickle in. Franz Hermann Schmidt, a German traveller told of an encounter in 1907. Schmidt was travelling along the Solimoes River in Colombia along with Captain Rudolph Pfleng. Pfleng and Schmidt encountered some huge tracks along the shores of a small lake and trees nearby were stripped to a height of 14 feet. The following day, Schmidt, Pfleng and their Indian guides saw a dark shape among the trees on the shore. A large tapir-like head was suspended on a snakelike neck more than 10 feet above the ground. The creature advanced towards the party but did not seem agitated. It was some 8 or 9 feet tall, with clawed flippers in place of legs. The explorers opened fire on the beast and it dove back into the water. Sounds Like a strange sight, almost giraffe like head and neck."

And here's the link to Lindsay's complete post.

From Today's Anomalist

From today's Anomalist:

What Orca Species Was Seen Off Massachusetts? Cryptomundo.

Trawler captain Billy Train of Falmouth, Maine, photographed a killer whale while fishing off the coast of Massachusetts. But what species of killer whale or orca was it? It has always been thought there was only one kind of orca. But, in fact, there may be three or more species.

In Search Of The Skunk Ape Valdosta Daily Times.

The newspaper has received calls from readers who believe they have seen what may be a Skunk Ape, a smaller Bigfoot-like creature with a foul odor, in South Georgia. One man sitting on his back porch in Brooks County watched one through binoculars: "He saw a hairy humanoid, with the hair being red, fading to brown and grey. The creature was lean and at least over six-feet tall...the creature leaned on one arm against a tree, looking around. It scratched its left calf with its right foot. Then it ran away...This creature had a strange walk that did not match the movements of a human..."