CryPtoReports.com

The last thing Darlene Thompkins expected to see on her holiday was something she referred to as the ‘Ootsa Lake monster’.

Thompkins who is holidaying in Burns Lake with her family from Edmonton, said she named the mysterious sighting in Ootsa Lake a monster because she didn’t know what else to call it.

Thompkins and her granddaughter were wading in the water near the Ootsa Lake spillway last week, while her friend George sat on the shore.

“A plane flew over and we watched that go by, it looked like the pilot was doing some sort of training exercise, then when we looked back down there was a big wave in the water,” she said.

Thompkins said the wave struck her as being unusual at the time so she watched the large ripple in the water about eight to 10 metres from where she and her granddaughter were standing.

Thompkins then said she and her granddaughter saw a head appear out of the water.

“It looked like a huge snake head ,,, and it was a dark grey colour,” she said.

“I called out to George to come and look, but he said to come out of the water and was a little scared. I didn’t think about being scared because I was trying to see what it was, I grabbed my video camera and recorded but I was in a hurry and the focus was zoomed in so the footage is blurry,” she said.

Thompkins then grabbed a camera to take a picture of the creature and snapped a shot.

“It looks further away in the photo that what it was …. we saw it much closer,” she said.

“We saw it twice, then another one came up beside it and a third one came too,” said Thompkins adding that the creatures were very long like a snake.

“You could see the head while they were swimming along then further back there was another part of it – like a hump …. I can’t stop thinking about what we saw and wondering what it was,” she added.

“My uncle said it was probably a sturgeon, but this creature was swimming along with its head out of the water …. right up and out of the water …. and it was really big,” she said.

“I wish I knew what it was, I have heard other people say they have seen something similar ….. these lakes are so big, you would never know what is living in them,” she added.

Source: bclocalnews

CYNICS may dismiss it as just a piece of driftwood or a trick of the light.

But a photograph showing what appears to be a long-necked sea creature has got marine experts scratching their heads.

The ‘animal’ was snapped stalking a shoal of fish just 30 yards off the British coast.

The fish were apparently so terrified they beached themselves just seconds later.

The creature was spotted off the Devon coast at Saltern Cove, Paignton, by locals who reported a sighting of what they thought was a turtle.

But pictures taken by one of the baffled witnesses, Gill Pearce, reveal the neck of the greenish-brown beast with the reptile-like head is far too long for it to be a turtle.

Mrs Pearce, who took the photo on July 27, reported her sighting to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) where it was studied by sea life experts.

Claire Fischer from the MCS said: ‘Gill Pearce spotted the creature about 20m from the bay at Saltern Cove, near Goodrington.

‘It was observed at about 15.30 on 27 July but by the time she had got her camera it had moved further out.

‘She spotted it following a shoal of fish which beached themselves in Saltern Cove.

‘The creature remained in the sea, then went out again and followed the shoal – this indicates it’s not a turtle as they only eat jellyfish.

‘We would love to know if other people have seen anything like this in the same area and can help clear up the mystery.’

Source: news.com.au

A group of teens in Tecumseh make an unusual sighting. The group now wonders if they ran across the legendary chupacabra. The kids claim to have spotted the unique creature in the woods behind Tecumseh High School.

A cell phone picture of the mystery animal backs up their story. “It’s got long back legs and it’s front legs are small. It has a long tail and doesn’t have any fur,” said Ryan Craighead.

Source: kfor.com

It is possible that there may have been multiple kills of the mysterious Chupacabra creature in Texas. At a barn in Hood County , Texas the hunt for the chupacabra may have ended. An animal control officer named Frank Hackett shot and killed a extremely odd and ugly creature.

Many believe that the creature killed by Hackett is the elusive chupacabra or goat sucker. But this was not the only chupacabra sighting to happen in Hood county. A second chupacabra was sighted and also killed several miles away from the Hackett killing.

Both of the creatures appear very similar and look somewhat like ugly dogs , hairless coyotes, or possibly some yet undocumented creature known as el chupacabra. Legend of the chupacabra says that the creatures would attack and suck the blood from goats.

When questioned officer Hackett would not say if he believed if these creatures was or was not the chupacabra and said he will wait for DNA test results to make up his mind. But he says one thing he does know is that these creatures were not normal. Another officer who also saw the creature at the scene said she had never seen anything like it. Here is a video of the ;locals and the creatures, the images of the creature are pretty nasty.

Russian fishermen are demanding a probe into a creature resembling the Loch Ness monster in a remote Siberian lake.

Locals say that ‘Nesski’ has devoured anglers who have been pulled into the murky waters of Lake Chany from their boats.

Those claiming to have glimpsed the creature say it resembles the classic long-necked image of Scotland’s fabled monster. It has also been called ’snake-like’, while other accounts suggest a large fin and huge tail.

The latest mysterious death of a 59-year-old man last week has fuelled demands for a proper probe into what lurks beneath the surface of Chany, one of Russia’s largest freshwater lakes.

‘I was with my friend… some 300 yards from the shore,’ said 60-year-old Vladimir Golishev. ”He hooked something huge on his bait, and he stood up in the boat to reel it in.

‘But it pulled with such force that he overturned the boat. I was in shock – I had never seen anything like it in my life.

‘I pulled off my clothes and swam for the shore, not daring hope I would make it.’

He said his friend was pulled under the surface, a description in common with earlier incidents.

‘He didn’t make it – and they have found no remains.’

Three years ago 32-year-old Mikhail Doronin – a special services soldier – was lost.

‘The lake was calm, but suddenly the boat was rocking, and it capsized,’ said his 80-year-old grandmother Nina, who has lived beside the lake all her life.

‘Something of an awesome scale lives in the lake, but I have never seen it,’ said her husband, Vladimir, 81.

Official figures say 19 people have drowned in the lake in the past three years and in most cases their remains were never found. Locals say the true figures are higher.

Some bodies that have been washed up had been eaten by a creature with large teeth, they claim.

‘It is time to find out the truth,’ said Golishev.

Unlike deep Loch Ness, Lake Chany is no than 23 feet in depth. Frozen in winter, it is warm and popular with swimmers in summer. It is known to contain large carp.

The lake is 57 miles in length by 55 miles in width. A relic of the Ice Age, accounts of monsters in its waters were first made public in Soviet times.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Quote:

I was hiking with my dog about 6 miles northeast of Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. I was carrying water, my still camera, some food, a compass, a knife and my phone (which had no service in that area). I never traveled through this remote desert before and I hoped to capture some photos of the spectacular landscape. I saw the incredible carcass after we hiked about 2 1/2 hours and were about to turn around to head back to the truck. My dog wouldn’t go near it, which was unusual, as he always finds dead animals eagerly and I have to call him off.

I began to take a picture and the battery died after I snapped one frame. It was fully charged when I left that morning. I knew this was a significant find and I wanted to collect the specimen in lieu of the lack of photographic evidence to document the creature, but there was no way I could carry it back to the car. I decided I would come back with the means to do so, a large backpack with some ropes to tie it on with. As I couldn’t record the spot with my phone’s gps, I did my best to remember the spot and I marked the trail going back so I was sure I could retrace my steps.

I returned the next day with a friend from Taos, determined to bring the animal home. We easily found the trail that I had marked out the day before. It was gone. We couldn’t find a trace.

About the creature itself, it was much larger than any fox, more the size of a large coyote of wolf, about 48″ long. It had a pronounced and extremely long snout, like a tapir or platypus. The most unusual features were the bumps along the spine and the approx. 4-5 inch long “sabre-tooth”. I could see only a single one of these large fangs. The spine bumps seemed to extend out from the vertebra in line with the ribs. They had the same short dense fur that covered the body (definitely not the hairless mange dogs commonly referred to as chupacabra). It had some longer coarse hair on it’s haunches. It’s feet were oddly shaped, more like hooves, but with the features of canid paws, toes and nails. It’s legs were long and extended, especially the lower rear legs. The gaping hole in the ribcage was the only visible wound on the body and looking into it, I could see no remnant of any internal organs. There were no insects on the carcass.

I believe it is possibly a previously unclassified canine, perhaps distorted by the process of mummification. This was something extremely rare and unusual and I feel privileged to have seen and recorded it.

Imagine a monster living on the borders of the upper north shore. An aquatic beast which lurks in the depths of the Hawkesbury River. A creature related to the Loch Ness monster.

For cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy, the fledgling legend of the Hawkesbury River Monster is real and he’s determined to prove it.

Since 1965, he and his wife Heather have been gathering information on a creature he believed still lives in our major waterway, or once did.

After years of “patience, field trips and stake-outs’’ along the shores of the river, Mr Gilroy, who is also known for his research on the Blue Mountains Panther, hopes to finally obtain photographic evidence.

“Sooner or later, I’m hoping to get the shot of shots,’’ Mr Gilroy told the Advocate.

The Gilroys say they have compiled hundreds of sightings reports.

“They tend to be seen around (Mooney Mooney and Long Island),’’ Mr Gilroy said.

“There are stories of houseboats being lifted up at one end when something underneath tried to surface over at Jerusalem Bay.

“A lot of the inlets here have stories.’’

The most recent sighting was by fishermen near Wisemen’s Ferry, in March.

“(One of them) momentarily saw a serpentine head and about 2m of long neck rise above the water before submerging,’’ Mr Gilroy said.

He also referred to a sighting by Rosemary Turner in 1975, who reported a monster swimming upstream from a lookout at Muogamarra Nature Reserve.

Robert Jones, a palaeontologist from the Australian Museum, said that as far as science is concerned, the existence of the Hawkesbury River Monster has never been proven.

“It’s impossible for them to live in the Hawkesbury River; they just don’t exist,’’ he said.

But according to Mr Gilroy, the monster is part of Aboriginal folklore, with stories of women and children being attacked by the “moolyewonk’’ or “mirreeular’’ both indigenous names. They also feature in ancient rock art on the banks of the river.

“There’s got to be something to it,’’ Mr Gilroy said.

Descriptions of the Hawkesbury River Monster liken it to the prehistoric plesiosaur, an aquatic dinosaur 70 million years extinct.

The Loch Ness monster is also said to be related to the same extinct creature.

Mr Jones said plesiosaurs did exist in Australia, but ther was no evidence of them inhabiting the Hawkesbury River.

However both Mr Gilroy and Mr Jones describe the aquatic dinosaur as grey and mottled in colour, with a large bulky body, two sets of paddle-like flippers, a long neck and serpent-like head and thick, eel-like tail.

Sighting reports describe it as about 24m long. Mr Jones said the plesiosaur grew up to 10m long.

Mr Gilroy said he and his field assistant Greg Foster may have sighted the creature last August, from a high bank near Wiseman’s Ferry.

They described seeing a dark, bulky shape with a long neck about a metre from the surface.

Its movements caused surface disturbance which appeared to suggest a marine creature with two sets of flippers and a tail, Mr Gilroy said.

“It was encouraging,’’ he said.

“I’m hopeful that I’m going to get some sort of evidence that satisfies me … and when I’ve got that, I will be pleased to put it on the desk of some scientist and say `well there you are!’’’

Source: hornsby-advocate

”This is the most important footage of a Sasquatch since Paterson/ Gimlin film taken over 40 years ago,” said Matthew Moneymaker, head of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization ( BFRO)as he introduced guest speaker Michael Greene to a crowd of 250 Bigfoot researchers in Yakima, Washington, at an invitation only tribute to Bob Gimlin.

In 1967 The Paterson/ Gimlin film of a Sasquatch striding across a creek in northern California made headlines around the world.

Since then there has been only dubious additional footage, usually crudely made fakes.

Until now.

In April 28th,2009, some three minutes of video of a Sasquatch were taken through a thermal imager (FLIR) by Michael Greene, in the Uwharrie National Forest, NC.

This footage, known as “The Squeaky Thermal” was first shown at Bob Gimlin’s birthday party 2 weeks later. It was viewed with wild applause and a heartfelt “Thank you, thank you so much” from Bob Gimlin, who was finally receiving some well deserved vindication of his efforts so long ago.

Michael Greene is the retired Chief of a State Fraud Investigations Bureau. has a Master’s Degree in Psychology, and is a Court Qualified Questioned Documents Expert ,and former Investigator for the Public Defender’s Office .His hobby for the last 20 years has been searching for proof of this elusive beast. This quest has taken him from glacier fields in the Yukon, to a giant meteor crater in northern Quebec, the Everglades of Florida and the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest.

In 2008 he briefly saw a Sasquatch in the Uwharrie National Forest , and spent the next year repeatedly camping at the spot, trying to encourage its return and gain some semblance of its trust.

“Over and over I left out bananas, apples, peanut butter, Zagnut bars, and little squeaking bathtub toys that my grandchildren like to play with. Hence the name ‘Squeaky’, one of the toys the Bigfoot took. Sometimes things would be taken , most times not. At the time I could only record for about 2 hours, the battery life of the thermal , so a lot of the night went unrecorded. This is definitely a patient man’s game.

“A thermal imager sees only images made by heat. FLIR, or Forward Looking Infra Red, is most familiar to viewers of police reality shows like COPS, where a fugitive is seen from a helicopter as a white image, running through backyards. You cannot fool a thermal imager as it is recording only the heat signature of what it sees. Thus, a man in a costume would look splotchy and irregular, as his costume would suppress the body heat to varying degrees, unlike a naked man, or Bigfoot, which would appear primarily as a solid color.”

Greene continues, “Around 11:30 on the night of April 28th, 2009 I was setting up the thermal recording stuff, to try hiding it in the back of my Toyota Highlander when I heard movement in the woods down in the area I expected it to show up. On an impulse I took the thermal imager and put it on a tripod, with the DVR ( Digital Video Recorder) on the ground next to it. Then I got in the car and drove away, leaving my campsite very obviously deserted . I drove to the one entrance to the area ( which had no one else in it) and parked for two hours ( the approximate life of the thermal’s battery ). When I returned the battery was indeed dead, but the bait was gone.

“On reviewing the tape I saw that about half an hour after I drove away, the creature very cautiously approaches, crawling up the hill behind the stump, then reaches up with its right arm and grabs the Zagnut bar. Then it crawls backwards , moving almost out of sight and moves off to the right of the screen. A few seconds later, perhaps emboldened by its success, it reappears on the right side of the screen and moves, standing upright, to behind a tree, where it slowly sways back and forth, giving the viewer a good idea of its enormous bulk. This swaying behavior has been repeatedly reported by other witnesses. The height I estimate at around 7 ½ feet, but it is hard to exactly pin down as the ground slopes down , away from the viewer so one cannot exactly tell where it’s feet hit the ground.

“My website, www.bushloper.net, gives a thorough explanation of the area, and how it was filmed and a reenactment of the Sasquatch’s movements by me, wearing only shorts, taken from the same spot, with the same equipment. You can see the difference, and I’m 6’5” tall and 190 pounds .By comparison, this thing is huge. The website also contains the complete Squeaky Thermal video (Copyrighted).

“After Bob Gimlin’s birthday party I posted some of the footage on the BFRO website, where it has been viewed over 80,000 times, with overwhelmingly positive feedback.

“Most people are completely unaware of the enormous body of reports and evidence for this fascinating but very elusive creature’s existence. I suggest that they explore the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) website at bfro.net and spend a few hours reading.

“My efforts continue to this day, now with the ability to record all night long with two thermal imagers, in hopes of getting clearer and longer footage to finally put the question of their existence to bed once and for all.”

Source: prweb.com

The Times received calls from readers who believe they have seen what may be a Skunk Ape in South Georgia. One reader account came from Brooks County, the other from Berrien County.

A Skunk Ape is reportedly a hairy humanoid creature that walks on two legs. It is described as being similar to the legendary Bigfoot, but of slighter build. Skunk Apes grow about seven-feet tall and weigh 200 to 300 pounds, according to witness accounts.

The creature is called a Skunk Ape because of the foul odor accompanying most sightings. The smell is described as being similar to rotten eggs. Skunk Apes reportedly love wooded, swampy areas, and the Skunk Ape legend comes primarily from the Florida Everglades.

While the Skunk Ape ranks among legendary creatures such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the Mothman, and others, numerous Internet sites report witness accounts. Several sites mentioned recent Skunk Ape sightings along the Withlacoochee River between Quitman and Valdosta in Brooks County. This repeated Internet mention to South Georgia led to The Times story last week.

The article led to these subsequent reader accounts. Both sightings occurred prior to the article’s publication, according to these readers. Both readers gave The Valdosta Daily Times their full names. One asked that we not publish his name. We use the first name of the other caller.

Did these folks see a Skunk Ape? We’ll share their stories and you decide.

• Between 10-10:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 21, Joy was driving along Highway 37 in Berrien County. She had a friend on her cell phone.

Outside of Ray City, she had her car’s bright lights on and she saw something hairy, walking away from the road, into the woods.

“I saw the back of something,” Joy says. “It was tall. … I thought it was a bear but a bear don’t walk on its back legs. … Honestly, it looked like an ape.”

Joy said her husband’s about six feet tall and she gauged what she saw to be about the same height as her husband. She didn’t smell anything driving by the creature.

She told her friend on the phone that she thought she saw something like a hairy man walking into the woods. Her friend laughed and asked if Joy had been drinking. “I told her I hadn’t been drinking and, sir, I don’t drink,” Joy told The Times.

Joy continued driving that night. She mentioned what she saw to a few people, but didn’t give it much more thought until her mother told her about the article in The Valdosta Daily Times.

During daylight, Thursday, April 29, the day after The Times story, Joy and her mother traveled to the same part of the road where she claimed to witness a creature. She said the area has numerous trees and is swampy.

Joy believes she saw a Skunk Ape or a creature like it.

— Last Friday, The Times received the phone message from the man in Brooks County who claimed “… I saw it.”

Calling him back, he said earlier this spring, before the leaves returned to the trees, he was smoking a cigar on the back porch of his Brooks County home, three miles outside of Quitman. It was  between 10-11 a.m., when he “saw something walk out of the woods.”

He first thought it a deer but saw that it had no hind quarters. He then thought it “an idiot in a ghillie suit,” a type of camouflage clothing covered in loose strips of cloth or twine designed to look like foliage.

But even then he thought something wasn’t right.

He went inside his house and got a pair of 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 was probably about 500 yards away, too far away to smell, he said.

He watched the creature for about eight minutes through the binoculars. During that time, the creature leaned on one arm against a tree, looking around. It scratched its left calf with its right foot. Then it ran away.

“It didn’t walk like a human,” he said. “It’s joints don’t quite move like a human.”

He said if you throw a sheet over a man or a woman, you can tell the gender by the way the person walks despite the sheet. This creature had a strange walk that did not match the movements of a human, he said.

The man thinks the creature is an omnivore, an eater of meats and plants, rather than a vegetarian. A vegetarian has a bigger belly, like a cow, he said.

He believes this creature stays lean from eating meat. What kind of meat? The man says he’s taking no chances.

“If I go out in the woods now,” he says, “I make sure to carry something with me that goes bang.”

He believes he probably isn’t the only person to see the creature.

“If I’m calling, there’s probably nine other people who’ve seen it who haven’t said a word to anyone,” he says, “because they don’t want people thinking they’re crazy.”

Source: valdostadailytimes

Bulgaria’s Rabisha Lake

The world famous monster Nessie from the Loch Ness in Scotland is about to get a rather tough competitor – the Water Bull from the Rabisha Lake in Northwestern Bulgaria.

Even though the Water Bull and Nessie seem to be of very different species, the Water Bull of the Rabisha Lake is set to conquer the world going in the footsteps of the Loch Ness Monster, Emil Tsankov, Mayor of the town of Belogradchik has told Novinite.

Belogradchik is a small, though, rather famous and picturesque town in the Bulgarian Northwest. First and foremost, it is known for the Belogradchik Rocks – absolutely miraculous rock formations stretching for some 30 km in the western part of the Balkan Moutain (Stara Planina).

Over the past year, the Belogradchik Rocks did pretty well in the competition for the New Seven Wonders of the World, and even though they failed to make it to the finalists, they have found a spot on the prestigious reserve list. The other amazing thing near Belogradchik is the Magurata Cave with its enchanting paintings by prehistoric people.

And the third world-class tourist attraction the Belogradchik Municipality wants to add to its portfolio has to do with the Monster of the Rabisha Lake.

Mayor Emil Tsankov has submitted an application to the EDEN (European Destinations of Excellence) contest, a EU-wide project focusing on sustainable development. The topic of the 2010 edition of the contest is “Water as a Force of Life and Prosperity” which made the Rabisha Water Bull a rather logical participant.

With the funding that the Belogradchik Municipality hopes to get, it plans to promote the legend about the Rabisha Lake Monster and to resurrect the local traditions related to the mysterious creature.

The Rabisha Lake – Bulgaria’s Loch Ness

The Rabisha Lake (“Rabishkoto Ezero” in Bulgarian) is located between the villages of Tolovitsa and Rabisha, in the Belogradchik Municipality, to the northwest of Sofia.

It is the largest lake in Bulgaria’s interior even though with its area of about 1 square km it is much more modest in size than the Loch Ness.

The Rabisha Lake has a tectonic origin. It was formed in the Quaternary Period, some 2,5-3 million years ago, and its depth reaches 30-40 meters.

“The lake has never been explored in detail so it is not unknown exactly what sorts of species from previous periods it is the home of,” Mayor Tsankov told Novinite.com.

One thing that stands out about the Rabisha Lake is the fact that it is an endorheic lake – no rivers flow out of it. This has turned it into the object of many folk tales and legends of medieval Bulgarians who believed that water had to be in circulation all the time.

Thus, the people in the region thought the lake was bottomless, and was therefore the home of many scary creatures common to the Slavic mythology.

The Legend about the Water Bull, the Rabisha Lake Monster

There are various legends about the Rabiska Lake Monster but Mayor Tsankov has picked the most “credible” one – which dates back to the 18th century – in order to focus their project on it.

The legend has it that a fearful monster inhabits the lake. Unlike Nessie and many other lake monsters, however, this one is no dinosaur; it is a lot more human-like, and is actually more like a minotaur.

The Rabisha Lake Monster, the so called Water Bull, has the head of a bull, the body of giant, strong man, and the tale of fish.

In order to keep this terrifying beast at ease, the local people would offer as a sacrifice to it the most beautiful young girl in the entire region in order to buy their safety. They would hold a procession taking the girl to the Rabisha Lake where it would get on a boat together with many wonderful gifts, and would fall pray to the monster.

It is exactly this procession with a gorgeous young girl, lavish gifts, and songs and dances that a major focus of the project to revive the Rabisha Lake legend, together with some other traditional folklore customs of the region. These customs and ceremonies will be shown to tourists and guests, and they will actually be invited to participate in them.

“The terrible story of the annual sacrifices to the Water Bull actually has a happy ending,” Tsankov explains with a smile. “The most gorgeous girl in the world was born one day in the village of Rabisha. When she grew up and the time came to offer her as sacrifice, she was placed in a boat and taken to the middle of the lake.

“However, when the Water Bull saw her, he was so enchanted by her that instead of killing her, he fell in love. He asked his sister, who was a sorceress, for help, and with her powers she made the beautiful girl immortal. The Water Bull took his young wife to the bottom of the Lake, and never came back for more prey. The two of them are still believed to live happily down there.”

Water Bull or Wels Catfish?

What might have given rise to such a legend (there are actually a number of local legends about the Water Bull Monster in the Rabisha Lake which have slight variations)? Assuming of course the actual Bull doesn’t hang around down there.

The Rabisha Lake is actually proven to be the home of real water monsters – gigantic wels catfish have been caught there. The largest ones reach 5 meters in length, and a weight of 350 kg!

The Belogradchik Mayor says there are also various reports of spotting these fish monsters near the surface of the Rabisha Lake – mostly in the months of April and May – even though the wels catfish usually spend most of their time on the bottom of the lake.

“This huge fish – a real monster – might have been the cause of the Water Bull legend in the first place,” Tsankov thinks.

Legend or no legend, the development of a brand new tourist product has been initiated, and the 24 Chasa Daily and the Belogradchik Municipality have already announced a competition for taking a photo of the Rabisha Lake Monster, and everyone is welcome to participate.

Hopefully, the photos of the enthusiasts rushing there will not capture any dinosaur, Nessie-like monster in the lake as this is going to throw into disarray the tidy plans of the municipality about its Water Bull.

Of course, Mayor Tsankov actually is much in favor of advertising the Water Bull as “the Bulgarian Nessie” in order to benefit from the world renown of the Loch Ness Monster.

Source: novinite.com