From krakens to gigantic sea serpents, terrifying monsters of the deep have haunted the imaginations of generations of mariners.
Now experts in marine life claim sea monsters might actually exist. Because scientists are still finding new species of underwater life, the discovery of ‘marine monsters’ is not impossible, a meeting heard yesterday.
‘The huge number of sea monster sightings now on record can’t all be explained away as mistakes, sightings of known animals or hoaxes,’ said palaeontologist Dr Darren Naish of the University of Portsmouth.
‘At least some of the better ones – some of them made by trained naturalists and such – probably are descriptions of encounters with real, unknown animals.’
One such example was reported in 1905 by zoologists Edmund Meade-Waldo and Michael Nicoll, who encountered a strange ‘sea serpent’ off the coast of Brazil.
And in August 1848, the crew of HMS Daedalus saw a 60ft-long sea creature during a voyage to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.
At the time, biologists in London claimed it was most likely an elephant seal – or even an upside down canoe.
Dr Naish told yesterday’s meeting of the Zoological Society of London: ‘Because large marine animals continue to be discovered – various new whale and shark species have been named in recent years – the idea that such species might await discovery is, at the very least, plausible.’
Some people have suggested present-day monsters might be plesiosaurs, long-necked marine reptiles that lived at the time of dinosaurs. But this was dismissed by Dr Charles Paxton, of the University of St Andrews, who organised yesterday’s meeting, entitled Cryptozoology: Science or Pseudoscience?
‘If there are prehistoric animals alive today it would imply that there’s something very wrong with our understanding of the fossil record,’ he said.
Dr Paxton argues it is wrong to assume that all large animals living in the oceans have been discovered. ‘If the criteria is solely bigness, then this is not the case,’ he said. ‘In 1995 a benthic ray, which lives on the ocean floor, was found that measured 3.42 metres.’
Eight large marine species have been discovered in the past 20 years.
Cryptozoology is the ‘study of hidden animals’ – or the search for creatures whose existence has not been proved, such as the Loch Ness monster and the Abominable Snowman.
Animal Planets: Finding Bigfoot has quickly become a much watched series by cryptid enthusiasts and random Bigfoot fans alike. The shows search for Bigfoot with the members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization also known as the BFRO has explored some of the most interesting Bigfoot sightings and reports and gone over some of the evidence collected which unclude Bigfoot photo’s and possible Bigfoot footprints. There have been some questions about older and newer episodes airing so here is an up to date episode guide for Finding Bigfootwhich includes first runs and reruns for next couple weeks.
UPDATED ….
July 15, 10:00 pm “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”
July 16, 12:00 am “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”
July 16, 5:00 am “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”
July 17, 2:00 pm “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”
July 17, 3:00 pm “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”
July 17, 4:00 pm “Caught on Tape”
July 17, 5:00 pm “Fishing for Bigfoot in Oregon”
July 17, 6:00 pm “Frozen Bigfoot”
July 17, 7:00 pm “Swamp Ape”
July 17, 10:00 pm “Behind the Search”
July 17, 11:00 pm “Behind the Search”
July 18, 2:00 am “Swamp Ape”
July 18, 5:00 am “Behind the Search”
July 22, 10:00 pm “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”
July 23, 12:00 am “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”
July 23, 5:00 am “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”
A team member on Animal Planets series Finding Bigfoot , Cliff Barackman does a video debrief of the Silver Star Photograph showcased in the “Frozen Bigfoot” Washington episode. Barackman also goes over some interesting connections between Bigfoot and cemeteries. The Finding Bigfoot Washington episode continues the crew’s search for Bigfoot and its look into some very interesting sightings and evidence. Members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) contiue their quest to prove the existance of the elusive cryptid.
Before that day in June 2008, Caddis Fly owner Chris Daughters had guided his drift boat down the McKenzie River more than 2,000 times without seeing Bigfoot.
Nor did he notice a large, furry creature lumbering along the river banks on that particular trip.
But never underestimate the power of a mystery.
Sunday, Daughters and his boat mate, Matt Stansberry, were part of an hourlong “Finding Bigfoot” segment that airs at 10 p.m. on the Discovery Channel’s “Animal Planet” program.
Why? Because a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stretch of video taken of Daughters by Stansberry — neither of the two even noticed it until it was later called to their attention — shows what appears to be a Sasquatch-type creature on the far left side of the image.
“It’s interesting footage,” says Toby Johnson, organizer of the 2011 Oregon Sasquatch Symposium this weekend at Camp White Branch on the Old McKenzie Highway. “It certainly doesn’t look like your typical guy in hip waders with a fly rod, does it?”
If the Daughters-Stansberry footage hasn’t attained quite the same renown as the Patterson-Gimlin footage that triggered the Bigfoot debate in 1967, the pair’s YouTube segment has gotten more than 107,000 hits. In addition, Bigfoot-oriented sites that have attached the link have probably doubled that number.
“I think there’s something to it,” says Greg Hatten, a McKenzie River guide and winner of the 2008 McKenzie Two-Fly Tournament. “I can tell you this: I know guys who won’t run the upper McKenzie alone — and I’m one of them.”
Others are skeptical. “There’s obviously another boat pulled up on the bank there with one guy standing by it,” opined someone else on the same site. “The other guy, ‘Bigfoot,’ is walking back to him from down the bank. They then begin speaking to each other. Bigfoot is even wearing a baseball cap.”
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so, it seems, is Bigfoot. But regardless of whether the video shows the real deal, the footage has only padded the McKenzie Valley’s burgeoning image as a Bigfoot hot spot.
At Ike’s Lakeside Pizza, in October 2009, a British TV crew interviewed area Bigfoot believers about sightings along the river; how can I forget one alleged witness telling me “he looked like the old King Kong.” Since then, Ike’s monthly “Beer and Bigfoot” gatherings have gone to biweekly sessions and, lately, weekly. The Sasquatch Symposium is anchoring its second annual symposium up river. And an Animal Planet crew not only came to gather footage for Sunday night’s show last March but is headed back next week for more.
All of which delights Daughters and Stansberry, who, at least off camera, remain skeptical that their video shows a bona fide Bigfoot but welcome the attention it brings to the McKenzie.
“Can’t hurt business,” says Stansberry, who maintains a fly-fishing blog (oregonflyfishingblog.com).
Wait, I suggested, some guides are already admitting they’re staying away from that stretch; couldn’t Bigfoot become to the McKenzie River what Jaws was to the tourist town of Amity — a reason to stay out of the water?
“If anything, more people will come because of it,” says Daughters, among the McKenzie’s most respected anglers and guides.
Like me, he’s a “ninety-five/fiver” on Bigfoot — 95 percent sure it’s a myth but 5 percent willing to be wrong.
“What surprised me was the number of people who, I realized, are highly interested in Bigfoot, like (UO golf coach) Casey Martin,” Daughters says.
Daughters, 40, and Stansberry, 33, were leading a group of other guides down the river on the day the video was shot. They were between Paradise and Ollalie campgrounds, on a Class 3 rapids known as “Fish Ladder,” when the camera caught the moving figure.
Not that either of them noticed it live or even after seeing the video. More than a year later a couple of guys at the Caddis Fly noticed the dark, moving image. The pair found a website for the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization and, almost as a joke, forwarded the footage.
Since then, the video has taken on a life of its own.
When first seeing the footage, “Finding Bigfoot” crew member Cliff Barackman of Portland found it “fairly compelling.”
The color seemed right — and so did the creature’s perceived lack of a neck. But after visiting the site and further analyzing the film, Barackman is more inclined to believe it’s a couple of guys, one of whom jumps up on a rock — perhaps to get a better view of the boat going through the rapids — and helps the other one up, all in two seconds, max.
“That’s the value of on-scene investigation,” says Barackman, who doubles as a sixth-grade teacher.
I reviewed the footage with Barackman’s insight in mind. I see more of a fleeting, dark figure than two guys on rocks, an image that — whether it is — certainly looks like a Sasquatch.
But, then, maybe that’s what darkens the shadows of the mystery, what perpetuates the Bigfoot debate: the uncertainty on both sides of the river.
GIBSONVILLE — At first, Bernadette and Leonard Braley didn’t pay much attention to the spots of mud on the road about 50 feet from their home on Quartz Court in Gibsonville last October.
But then the Braleys began looking at the mud more closely and thought they looked a lot like footprints. Leonard grabbed the measuring tape and Bernadette a camera. They took photos of what they thought were 16-inch muddy footprints and then forgot about them for a few months.
This past January, Bernadette began thinking about the photos again while she was going through shows on her digital video recorder. One was news footage of man who encountered Bigfoot trying to attack his dog.
It got Bernadette thinking. She did a quick Internet search and found Bigfoot Lunch Club, a group that follows Bigfoot sightings, and there is one in North Carolina. Bernadette emailed her muddy footprint photos to the club. In February, the Braleys were invited to Troy to talk with a group from the Animal Planet television network that was doing some filming for a six-part series called “Finding Bigfoot” that started airing this month.
The Braleys were featured in an hour-long “Finding Bigfoot” episode about Sasquatch sightings in North Carolina. It aired at 10 p.m. Sunday on Animal Planet, which can be found at Channel 63 on Time-Warner Cable in Alamance County.
“When Animal Planet got there, they went crazy when they saw the pictures,” Bernadette Braley said. “They wanted to come to our house and do filming for their series.”
A four-person team from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization — BFRO — as well as a producer, cameraman and several others spent a day with the Braleys in March, asking questions, filming and trying to recreate the footprints.
“Their first question was do you live near power lines,” Bernadette Braley said.
Power lines run on the opposite side of their house. The second question was about the deer population. The Braleys’ property backs up to woods and there are a lot of deer. At the time the footprints were found, there was a lot of new construction going on in the cul-de-sac and plenty of mud in the area.
“They have concluded that Bigfoot sightings are around power lines because they like to run along the power lines and also deer. They like to eat deer or run with deer,” Bernadette Braley said.
The footprints were about 12 feet apart.
“They did some tests,” she said. “They put mud on the bottom of their shoes. They had a fellow running in the area. He jumped.”
The test subject was 6 feet tall and he left footprints that were about 6 feet apart.
“They estimated it was probably a lot taller and a lot heavier and running on the ball of its foot,” Bernadette Braley said.
The four-person team of researchers includes Bobo, a commercial fisherman, Cliff, a professional educator, Matt, the president of BFRO and Ranae, a skeptical scientist. They all have varying experiences with Bigfoot and different beliefs about the existence of the creature, according to an Animal Planet release.
“What binds them together, however, is their longing to understand the creature, passion for proving its existence and willingness to stop at nothing to finally track down Bigfoot,” the release states.
The Braleys enjoyed the experience with the Animal Planet group. Bernadette made the whole crowd chili. The researchers left behind a motion-sensitive night-vision camera that they set up in the woods.
The Braleys have a lot of photos of deer and rabbits and leaves falling, but they still haven’t captured Bigfoot on film.
Leonard Braley was always a believer that Sasquatch existed. Bernadette said she was always skeptical. After doing a lot of Internet research, talking to people and interacting with the folks from Animal Planet, she’s starting to be a believer herself.
“I’m leaning in the direction that there’s got to be a Bigfoot out there,” she said. “There is just too many sightings for it to be people’s imagination or hoaxes.”
The Braleys haven’t actually seen Bigfoot and never reported anything to authorities last year. Bernadette suspects that whatever made the muddy footprints is long gone, but she holds out hope.
“I, personally, would like to see it,” she said. “I would love to actually take a picture of it.”
The unknown lake creature in Georgia Altamaha-ha, known more casually as “Altie,” defies scientific explanation. Even before European settlement, the Tama tribes people told stories of a giant, snake-like river animal that hissed and bellowed. Over the past century, fishermen, lumberjacks and boy scouts have reported sightings of a creature in the tributaries and marshes of the Altamaha River, which feeds one of the largest river basins on the Atlantic Coast. The eyewitness consensus holds that the Altamaha-ha has a dark, smooth hide, apart from the tire-tread-like ridges on its back, as well as a narrow neck, prominent snout and flat, porpoise-like tail.
Could it be a sturgeon on steroids? A throwback to marine reptiles like the toothy plesiosaur? Maybe the Loch Ness Monster’s cousin from across the pond? I’m skeptical about cryptids, the kind of famous beings like Bigfoot unrecognized by the scientific establishment, but the Altamaha-ha called me with a siren song, despite the likelihood of a search turning into a snipe hunt. But even if the Altamaha-ha isn’t real, it could still have significance.
Founded in 1736, Darien, population 1,719, turns out to be a nexus of Altamaha-ha hot spots. The relaxed little town, 30 miles north of Brunswick on the South Georgia coast, boasts considerable history as the state’s second-oldest planned city and the location of Fort King George. Darien natives treat Altie the Georgia lake monster like the town’s unofficial mascot, comparable to leprechauns on St. Patrick’s Day. “He lays low, but he’s beloved,” says Kathleen Russell, the feisty, silver-haired editor of the Darien News, who maintains a thick folder of Altie sightings, letters and other news accounts. “I’ve seen him a couple of times. Once, a couple of years ago, in Doboy Sound, I saw a wake coming up the river, and there’s nothing that could make a wake like that.”
A snapshot of what is being called the “Morganza Snake” has been making it’s rounds on Facebook causing an uproar as people argue whether it is “real” or “fake.” We have heard from all the city and government officials that with the opening of the Morganza Spillway, that we may see animals (snakes, gators, bears, deer, hogs) in places that we don’t normally see them as they seek higher ground from the water pouring into areas designated to relieve the swelling Mississippi.
“My goal is not to convince, my goal is to open minds,”said Jeff Meldrum, professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University. Meldrum has been researching the specimen of Sasquatch for more than 15 years and has received national attention for his work, both positive and negative.
His research examines various evidences which suggest that the mythical creature Sasquatch may in fact be real. In particular, he hypothesizes there may be not only one creature living today, but as many as 500-750 of the Sasquatch species.
“People have been so conditioned that this isn’t possible that when they finally see it, it upsets their whole equilibrium,” he said.
Meldrum said many people, both inside and outside of academia, don’t believe that Sasquatch could be real.
“Some of the naysayers adapt that position because such a creature, such a species could not exist under our noses and not have been discovered,” he said.
Others, he said, don’t accept the possibility out of stubbornness.
“There’s a certain chic to being critical these days,” he said, “and skepticism is worn as a bright red arm band by some individuals.”
Dr. Robert Schmidt, USU professor of wildlife policy and human dimensions in the College of Natural Resources, invited Meldrum to come and speak.
“I met Dr. Meldrum a number of years ago and it was just interesting about how he, as a person with a credentials in science, how he uses that process to look at Sasquatch, which is a very different way than the other Sasquatch fans,” he said. “He has this logical process by which he sorta says ‘I can include this information.’”
Ryan Carlisle, an international studies major who attended the lecture, said the presentation didn’t affect his belief in Sasquatch.
“It’s a possibility,” he said. “I didn’t totally discount it. It could be.”
Halley Kartchner, a graduate student in human dimensions of ecosystems science and management who considers herself an amateur Bigfoot enthusiast said, “I thought it was really refreshing take on the legend of Sasquatch. My other exposure to it has been kinda crazy people I guess.”
She said that while she’s not completely convinced that Sasquatch is real, Meldrum’s lecture made her more inclined to believe he could be.
“It was really good to hear someone with a Ph.D and all this background knowledge giving his take on it,” she said.
Sara Preece, a graduate in marine biology from BYU, said, “I had never seen evidence presented the way he had. I feel like he presented it very factually, very evidence-based. He wasn’t trying to change anyone’s mind or convince anybody, he was just presenting objective evidence for people.”
She said she doesn’t necessarily believe or disbelieve that Sasquatch is real because belief connotes a religious type of conviction, but said Meldrum’s presentation did make her think that Sasquatch could be real.
Meldrum said he himself is not positive that Sasquatch is real, but that the evidence compels him to continue researching.
Yetis, monks, thieves and Jimmy Stewart. Mike Allsop’s tale has all the makings of a Hollywood movie.
But there is nothing phony about his mission to help restore the pride of the 1000-year-old Pangboche monastery in Nepal, nestled high in the Himalayan foothills near Mt Everest base camp.
Mr Allsop, an Air New Zealand pilot, Everest climber and adventurer, will return to the monastery this month with a special gift from Sir Richard Taylor’s Weta Workshop.
The replica hand is a copy of the monastery’s “original” yeti hand, which was stolen by persons unknown in the 1990s.
The hand, and part of a skull that proved to be from a rare goat, provided the monastery’s small source of income, from tourists who came to see the artefacts.
In the 1950s, explorer Peter Byrne and Hollywood actor Jimmy Stewart conspired to take one finger from the hand and have it tested in Britain, but the results were inconclusive, Mr Allsop said.
“There’s two stories – one says Peter Byrne got the monks drunk and switched the finger. But I’ve spoken to him, and he says he offered to pay the monks and they agreed to let him take it.”
Since the rest of the skeletal hand and the skull part were pinched in the 1990s, the monastery and its leader, Lama Gershe, have been without their main source of income. Mr Allsop hopes the replica items will help it survive until he can track down the originals.
He admits being sceptical about the existence of yetis, but said the legend was real enough to the monks.
“I asked Lama Gershe if he believed in it, and he started arguing with his wife in front of me. His daughter was translating for me and I asked her what they were fighting about.
“She told me he’d said his wife’s friend was attacked at her back door by a yeti five years ago – and she’d said no, it was 10 years.
“And the sherpas, if they’re around other people, they’ll tell you they don’t believe, but get them alone and they’ll say: ‘We don’t have problems with yetis … except in monsoon season.”‘
Mr Allsop has had a special connection with Pangboche since he first visited on his way to climb Everest in 2007. Lama Gershe helped to name his youngest son, Dylan Michael Dalha Allsop.
Last year when his eldest son, Ethan, turned seven he took him to see Everest and Pangboche, and plans to do the same with his younger children when they reach the same age.
He will leave for the monastery, with 15 Air New Zealand staff, on April 17 to install the replica artefacts in a secure glass case.
He hopes his campaign, Return The Hand, will locate the original bones, but time may be running out for Lama Gershe, who suffered a stroke last year.
THE MYTH OF THE YETI
The yeti, or abominable snowman, is one of the most famous mythological creatures. It is said to inhabit the mountainous areas of Nepal, Tibet and India.
Several explorers, including Peter Byrne, believe they have found tracks and dung belonging to yeti.
Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mt Everest, led an expedition in 1960 with a team of 21 scientists, climbers and other specialists, along with 310 Sherpas, to do scientific research on acclimatisation to altitude and to hunt for yetis. They failed to find any but brought back hair samples. Fellow Everest conqueror Tenzing Norgay told Sir Ed his father had twice seen a yeti.
Sir Ed’s long-time friend, Tom Scott, said Sir Ed did not believe in the yeti but liked the concept. “The locals believed in them and Ed felt really bad for myth-busting them. He liked the possibility of the yeti. If someone found one, he would have been delighted.”
Russia is setting up a university research institute to study the Yeti after a spate of claimed recent sightings in Siberia.
Scientists say they have found 15 witnesses in the past year who gave statements that they saw the Abominable Snowman in one remote area .
‘We spoke to local residents’, said Dr Igor Burtsev, who conducted an expedition last summer and will head the new institute at Kemerovo State University. ‘They told us Yetis were stealing their animals.’
The academic claims around 30 Yetis live in a remote region of Mount Shoria in in southern Siberia.
He strongly denies accusations that the ’sightings’ are a bizarre ruse to attract tourists to the far-flung region.
Reports say the two-legged creatures are heavy-set, more around 7ft tall and resemble bears.
‘Their bodies were covered in red and black fur, and they could climb trees,’ said one account.
One villager, Afanasy Kiskorov, even claimed to scientists that he rescued a Yeti on a hunting trip a year ago.
The creature was screaming in fear after falling into a swollen mountain river, he said.
His version suggested a ’strange creature, looking like a huge man which tried several times to get out of water and to stand up on both feet, but dropped into the water each time and was howling’.
As his fellow-hunters ‘froze’ in amazement, Kiskorov held out a dry tree trunk.
‘The creature clutched to it and crawled to the bank,’ he said.
The Yeti allegedly then ran off. This ’sighting’ was in the Tashtagol district of the Kemerovo Region, only accessible by helicopter. However, no photographic evidence exists.
Other accounts say the Yetis steal hens and sheep from remote villages.
According to Burtsev, Yetis are Neandethal men who have survived to this day
‘In Russia there are about 30 authoritative scientists who are engaged in studying the phenomenon of the ‘Abonimable Snowman’. All of them will be integrated into this institute,’ said Dr Burtsev.
The ‘primary goal’ is to ‘establish contact’ with one of the creatures.
Leading Russian scientists deny the existence of the Yeti. An expensive Soviet expedition in central Asia found traces but no clear proof of the existence of the Yetis.
