At first glance it looks like another dark ripple on the water.

But study the photograph more closely and a dark hump and tail can be seen poking through the water’s surface, or so a life-long hunter of the Loch Ness monster hunter claims.

William Jobes, 62, believes that he may have at last captured the elusive creature on camera after 45 years of trying.

‘I had a wonderful shock,’ Mr Jobes said.’I have actually been coming up to Inverness for the past 45 years and I have never seen anything like this before.’

Quickly grasping his camera, Mr Jobes from Irvine in Ayrshire, managed to take a single picture before the ‘head’ disappeared under the surface.

However, to his delight a dark, hump-like shape broke the waves and he was able to take more photographs of the apparent sighting on May 24 at just after 11.10am.

Mr Jobes is convinced it was not a seal or piece of wood.

‘To be honest I know the difference between a piece of wood or a particular animal,’ he said.

‘I immediately did think it was a seal but it’s head was like a sheep.’

However, veteran Nessie hunter Steve Feltham, remains sceptical, although he admits the hump photograph cannot be immediately explained and is worth further investigation.

‘The river comes out there and something large could have come down the river and flowed out there,’ he suggested.

Mr Jobes’ is the second potential sighting of nessie so far this summer.

Last month Foyers shop and cafe owner Jan Hargreaves and her husband Simon believe they caught a glimpse of the creature.

The apparent sighting of Nessie comes after a couple were left shocked when they discovered the rotting body of a sea monster while walking along a beach at Bridge of Don,  Aberdeen.

Margaret and Nick Flippence made the incredible find as they exercised their dogs at the popular beauty spot.

Mr Flippence, 59, who lives nearby, said: ‘We were stunned. I thought, “oh my God what is it?”

Curled up by the foot of sand dunes was the 30ft-long body of the unidentified animal with head, tail and teeth all discernible.

Experts are now examining the pictures with one suggesting it could be the body of a whale.

Before the discovery of the enormous sea carcass, a large creature, 20 to 30ft long with humps on its back, was filmed moving through the waters of an Alaskan bay.

The unidentified creature which was filmed by local fisherman in 2009 has already drawn comparisons to Scotland’s infamous Loch Ness Monster.

Scientists believe that the Alaskan creature could be a Cadborosaurus -  a type of sea serpent that got its name from Cadboro Bay in British Columbia and is said to roam the North Pacific.

Paul LeBlond, former head of the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia, told Discovery News: ‘I am quite impressed with the video.

‘Although it was shot under rainy circumstances in a bouncy ship, it’s very genuine.’

The Cadborosaurus willsi, meaning ‘reptile’ or ‘lizard’ from Cadboro Bay, is an alleged sea serpent from the North Pacific thought to have a long neck, a horse-like head, large eyes, and back bumps that stick out of the water.

In 1937, a supposed body of the animal was found in the stomach of a whale captured by the Naden Harbour whaling station in the Queen Charlotte Islands, a British Columbia archipelago.

Samples of the animal were brought to the Provincial Museum in Victoria, where curator Francis Kermode concluded they belonged to a fetal baleen whale.

The animal’s remains, however, later disappeared.

James Wakelun, a worker at the whaling station, last year said that he saw the creature’s body and ‘it wasn’t an unborn whale.’

Like other cryptids, animals whose existence is suggested but not yet recognised by scientific consensus, the Cadborosaurus has existed only in grainy photographs and eyewitness accounts.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017649/Loch-Ness-Monster-stick-Walker-claims-photographed-creature.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

“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.

Source: utahstatesman

Producers, actors and a crew from Animal Planet, yes you read right, Animal Planet, are coming to Montgomery County. Why you ask….they are coming in hopes of catching a glimpse of “Bigfoot” in the Uwharrie National Forest. Yes, you also read that right, “Bigfoot” in the Uwharrie National Forest.

It appears that the Uwharrie National Forest has become the hot spot for “Bigfoot” sightings, especially if you leave a Zagnut candy bar around. Michael Greene of Salisbury says he captured a thermal image of “Bigfoot” in the forest, using a Zagnut candy bar.

Greene says on his Web site, Bushloper.net that, he has “Been on the trail of Bigfoot for some 20 years. He has traveled from Bella Coola, BC to the Teslin River, Yukon Territory, to Bluff Creek, CA, to the Olympic Peninsula, WA, to the Adirondack Mountains of NY State, Florida’s Everglades and to the forests of North Carolina, where he now makes his home. Greene has an MS in Behavioral Psychology, is a court-qualified Questioned Documents Expert and for 20 years was Chief Investigator for a State Fraud Bureau. He is a pilot and a former EMT and member of the National Ski Patrol.” Greene also describes his encounter on the Web site detailing the filming and the use of the candy bar.

Greene says he first encountered “Bigfoot” two years ago and that just like any other species there are multiple creatures. “They multiply and there has to be thousands of them,” said Greene. But Greene realizes there are skeptics and says, “Until I saw it myself, I did not believe it. It was like a fairy tale.”

Greene is not alone in his search. West Montgomery football coach John Pate also is an avid believer and field researcher. Pate and Greene are both members of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization, which will be a part of the search.

Pate is organizing a meeting at the Troy Fire Department for anyone interested in talking to the film crew about their own personal experiences with “Bigfoot” encounters. The meeting is set for Feb. 8 from 6-9 p.m.. Pate has been an investigator for the organization for four years, but says he has been looking for “Bigfoot” as a hobby for 15 years. “Some people hit golf balls, I go to the woods. It is my sanity.” Pate says he has not been so lucky as to see “Bigfoot” but he has heard him. Pate says he has talked to people that have seen “Bigfoot” in this county though and he hopes they will come out and share their story. “The one dominant thing about “Bigfoot” is his eyes. They are orange and have a dominant shine to them,” said Pate.

Pate says the field researchers are as diverse a group as you will ever meet. Doctors, businessmen and others are all gathering material for the organization. A drive in the forest to try and flush out “Bigfoot” will be held Saturday, Feb. 12.

Source: Montgomery Herald

WINNIPEG – After a half century of nightmares, Winnipegger Archie Motkaluk, 70, has finally revealed the secret behind his decades of sleepless nights.

Christmas Day at home on Lipton Street, with all the family around him, Archie brought out a book containing handwritten notes and a drawing of the Sasquatch he had a very up close and personal encounter with back on December 29, 1960. One by one, the family took Archie’s book into a room adjoining their dining room, and read details of the day Archie clearly remembers standing face to face, eight feet away from a female Sasquatch in the bush near Swan River, Manitoba, and wondering what was going to happen next.

Home for Christmas from attending school in Winnipeg, Archie was visiting his parents farm near Renwer, Manitoba (south east of Swan River) and had taken a team of horses and the sleigh to go chop some wood three miles or so into the bush back of the farm.

With the horses tied to some nearby brush, axe in hand, 10:30 a.m., Archie was chopping deadfall when about 400 yards across the clearing he was in, he spotted what he believed to be a man slowly heading his way, stopping every few minutes to examine the bushes. Wasn’t quite sure what the guy was up to, but by the time the “man” got within a hundred yards or so, Archie realized his visitor was a Sasquatch, who, shortly after, confronted Archie in a manner that left him literally frozen in place till the fear subsided enough for both him and the Sasquatch to take a few steps back.

So why did he wait 50 years to tell his story? Seems Archie was recently watching a television program in which the guest declared there is no such thing as a Sasquatch, and Archie just couldn’t let it go. He decided regardless of the outcome, it was time to share his experience.

His description of the event is fascinating, particularly when he details the physical appearance, and behaviour of his somewhat nerve-wracking forest friend.

Archie tells me the only person he ever told of his encounter was his mother upon arriving home that day, who got him to sit down and draw a picture of it, the same picture he displays at the front of his notebook, now featured beside a Sasquatch pic one of his grandchildren got online.

Following the interview with Archie, I called University of Manitoba Science writer Chris Rutkowski, to ask if he was aware of any other Sasquatch sightings reported from the area. He recalled Sasquatch sightings at Easterville in 1968 and 1970, one of them reported by a school principal.

Googling Manitoba Sasquatch sightings I also found another report, this one on video, from March of 2007 near Peguis.

So now, Archie’s tale, as with all other reported sightings of Sasquatch/Loch Ness monster type experiences, is yours to believe, or not; dismiss or discuss; mock, or chock up as yet further proof that Sasquatch lives, and walks the woods of Friendly Manitoba.

Source: Toronto Sun

Mill City lies in the heart of Oregon’s big timber country. I spent the early years of my youth there, exploring old trails that wound through the thick forest to lookouts high atop the mountains. Here Oregon’s climate nourishes a towering evergreen rainforest folded into a maze of canyons and ridgetops, where countless streams and waterfalls lay hidden.

Although logging roads bisect much of these wild areas, there is a sense of mystery that pervades much of Oregon’s backcountry with soft sounds of wildlife, and sudden silence that floats as thick as morning fog through the trees.

When walking on lost trails where logging camps once bustled with busy families, one can still hear the lonely call of creatures unseen, distant and yet powerful, with a strange quality that will stop you in your tracks with a chill as cold as ice.

My wife and I ventured back to my childhood haunts on one such occasion. The area was denoted by a small circle on an old atlas I picked up at a used bookstore. ‘Camp 26′ was nestled into Green Mountain near Rock Creek, south of Mill City. It was the site of an old logging camp, now grown over with replanted Douglas Fir, marked only by a white signpost without a sign.

Here and there small rusty pieces of metal logging hardware told a story growing fainter every year. Fragments of cable and pulleys, hooks and bolts.

My wife and I piled them next to a tree as a silent memorial to a proud way of life lingering in the forest like an old tree stump with a buckboard scar.

Despite the replanted trees, now 30-40 feet tall, the meadow retained intangible qualities of the old logging camp. A trail meandered through the site, heading toward a nearby creek that once served the needs of thirsty loggers and their families.

According to my map, a small railroad once penetrated the woods nearby, bringing the huge old growth logs to the waiting mill in the Santiam Canyon. Now, the path of the rails was barely discernable, the rough and random windfall was slowly reclaiming man’s laborious entry into this shadowy realm.

My wife and I hiked the path toward the creek. We noticed several trees that had been inexplicably snapped off about eight feet above the ground.

Suddenly an otherworldly cry filled the forest around us. It emanated from higher up the Rock Creek canyon, piercing with a strange timbre that was bestial and somehow human. Long and drawn out, with a middle section broken with unearthly trilling, it faded into a nothingness of echoes from afar.

We looked at each other and knew at once that the message was a territorial warning, that we had strayed into the domain of something beyond our knowledge. My wife and I have decades of wilderness experience, and never have we heard anything like it.

If only our video camera had been on at that time to capture the mournful cry. We explored the area for awhile, then wandered to our van and prepared to leave. Instead we sat and waited for another sign of whatever it was that we heard. But there was nothing. Just that single cry that will last a lifetime.

Later when on the Internet, I stumbled upon a website of Oregon Bigfoot sightings, and learned that others had found signs of Bigfoot in the exact same area, with actual sightings in nearby Detroit.

Locals have stories of mysterious occurrences, which point to the existence of a creature of enormous strength and human-like intelligence. On that day, we later wondered, had the eyes of Sasquatch watched us from the gloom of the forest?

Source: Salem-News

Photo of possible “Wild Man” hair

The Shennongjia Nature Reserve in Hubei province has examined a strand of hair which it has not managed to identify, prompting local people to speculate that it may belong to the “Wild Man” – China’s own Bigfoot.

Piao Jinlan, a researcher at the reserve, said that scientists need to continue their tests before they can identify the species.

The hair is said to be thicker than human hair and thinner than horsetail hair.

More than 400 people have claimed to have seen the half-man, half-ape “Wild Man” in the area in the last 100 years.

Witnesses describe the creature as walking upright, more than 2 meters tall and with grey, red or black hair all over its body.

An investigative team was set up in 2009 and started a large-scale search for the mysterious creature in Shennongjia this year.

Source: globaltimes

Bigfoot alive and living in northern Minnesota?  The co-founders of the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Society say, “100 percent yes.”

They said they  have received more than 75 reports of sightings, captured images, and Bigfoot footprints in just three years. They’re sharing their insight while sorting fact from fiction as they take KSAX on the hunt for Bigfoot.

“I’m a skeptic of Bigfoot because I’ve trapped this whole area and never, ever did we see any Bigfoot tracks or see Bigfoot anywhere,” William Tucker of Bena said.

Long time trapper William Tucker is anything but a believer, but just miles away from Bena, mind boggling footprints were found.

Each track was a bit different, different pressures, different depths, eliminating the possibility of some sort of footprint stamp.

This is just one of the things the co-founders of the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Society say confirms the fact, Bigfoot is out there.

“I’m 110% convinced that it exists. There’s just too much evidence, too many people’s emotions showing when they recount their stories,” Bob Olson, a co-founder of the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Society said.  “One lady cries when she recounts her story of how this thing stood up and looked at her. She felt it looked into her soul.”

Since 2006, Olson and Don Sherman have received about 75 reports of similar Bigfoot sightings in Northern Minnesota, some of which have been captured on camera.

The most recent was captured in Remer. Though to some, the image may look like a man in a suit, a comparison with 6 foot 5 inch Bob Olson showed this man would have had to have been at least 7 feet tall.

Sherman and Olson say “wood knocking” is just one more way Bigfoot makes his presence known. Olson said Bigfoot responded to him at Carey Lake when he knocked on a tree five times.

What about bones? One KSAX reader says,  “I believe Bigfoot is 100% real, as are a lot of the other creatures of Cryptozoology. But i believe in their true form, they are spiritual creatures, that manifest in flesh as they so desire. That is why we will never find bones, or other such evidence of them.”

On the other side of the coin, Olson says giant bones belonging to Humanoid creatures were found in the late 1800’s, stretching 10 to 12 feet.

While there haven’t been any Bigfoot skeletons found, many trappers say they’ve never come across any bear, wolf, or other large animal skeleton either.

Other signs Bigfoot exists include branches plucked straight out of trees, strange looking shelters, and stick men to warn other Bigfoot of humans in the area.

“When there’s stuff that doesn’t go away, there’s gotta be something to it and the evidence just keeps mounting up,” Olson said.

For some Bena residents, the legend of Bigfoot is far from a tall tale.

“I never seen it, but like I says I believe in it,” New Prague resident Leo Hinderscheid said.

“I don’t know what to say Megan but I believe in it and that’s the way it will be,” Helen Tibbetts of Bena said.

So, the hunt for Bigfoot continues.

Source: ksax.com

Last November, the Centre For Inquiry (CFI) hosted Monsters of the Deep! at Conway Hall in London’s Red Lion Square. Meetings devoted to marine cryptozoology are few and far between, but then the same might be said about crypto­zoology meetings in general. Meetings about academic crypto­zoology are rarer than sightings of crypt­ids themselves. Organised by Stephen Law, the meeting featured talks by Dr Charles Paxton, a fisheries ecologist at the University of St Andrews, and yours truly, a vertebrate palæontologist who works on dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles at the University of Portsmouth and dabbles in academic cryptozoology. In addition to the talks, we held two workshops. As Charles stated early on in his talk, academic funding for cryptozoological research is essentially non-existent, so the audience could rest assured that their valuable tax pennies were not being frittered away on any of the research they were going to hear about.

Sea monsters inspire wonder, and that can’t be bad. But Charles explained that they also raise the very important question of how science deals with anomalous data. Forteans (indeed, Fort himself) have asserted that science ignores what it cannot explain. In fact, scientists have a tendency to ignore anomalous data only so long as they’re poorly recorded (in other words, are known only from anecdotes); irrefut­able records of such things as St Elmo’s fire, rogue waves and sprites – all origin­ally known entirely from anecdotes – show that science is ‘happy’ to accept the validity of low-frequency anomalies once the data are good enough. Furthermore, while there’s a widespread belief (particularly prevalent among scient­ists) that anecdotal data are worthless, anecdotes are important at several levels of the scientific process, including in hypothesis formation. Indeed, once a hypothesis (random example: that hippos might practise cannibalism) becomes accepted by a given research community, the chiming in from others in that community is often taken as verification, even though these addit­ional records are typically anecdotal (“I want to report that I’ve also seen hippos practising cannibalism”).

As was noted by both speakers, the possibility that unknown animals might really be at the bottom of sea monster reports should at least be considered as a possibility, and indeed it is already widely thought among biologists that large marine animals (large = more than 2m long) remain to be found. Animals of exactly this sort have been found in recent years and include several new cetaceans, an oarfish species and some deep-water rays. Furthermore, cumulative discovery curves for large marine animals suggest that – while discovery rates have slowed – there are almost certainly a few such species yet to find (between 10 and 50, depending on the study).

There’s no denying that many people (scientists included) have gotten involved in sea monster research because they really do like the idea that big, monstrous vertebrates might await discovery. But it’s evident that we should consider as many other options as possible before approaching this conclusion, and it can be argued that this hasn’t been the case so far. Hoaxing remains a problem. Sea turtles, leopard seals and other known species may account for some sea monster accounts, and Charles and colleagues achieved global notoriety in 2004 by proposing that the serpentine genitals of male whales might explain some sea-serpent accounts.

Whether sea monsters are real or not, the large number of catalogued sightings (over 1,000) means that a substantial amount of data is available for statistical analysis. Charles recently published the results of one such study in Journal of Zoology (a significant accomplishment) and some of the conclusions are surprising, especially to those who might assume that sea monster sightings all represent misid­entifications or hoaxes.
For one thing, most recorded monster sightings don’t normally occur at great distance, but at relatively close range. So the ideas that sea monsters (whatever they are) might be timid, or that people are seeing known species at great range and misidentifying them, are not supported by the reported data. A number of possibilities might explain the counter-intuitive closeness of the reported creatures. Maybe sea monsters are attracted to boats, maybe boats approach sea monsters in order to get a better look at them, maybe sightings are embellished in order to sound more impressive, and so on. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that the reporting of anomalous marine phenomena is biased, and that people only tend to report observations made at relatively close range. More distant objects, whether they’re anomalous or not, are less likely to be reported. This implies, suggested Charles, a strong reporting bias that might swamp any original biological signal.

Moreover, Charles discussed the results of experiments which show that people consistently underestimate the distances involved when viewing objects on the water. And while descriptions of an object are generally good, size estimates are not so hot, with women generally underestimating sizes while men generally overestimate them (insert hilarious wisecrack). One nice point Charles made is that what is reported is not the same as what is remembered; what is remembered is not the same as what is perceived; and what is perceived is not the same as what is seen.

The second talk of the day (my own ‘Sea monsters and the prehistoric survivor paradigm’) was more concerned with the various sea monster identities that have been proposed over the years, particularly those invoking the alleged survival to the present of large tetra­pods known only from the fossil record, specifically plesiosaurs, mosasaurs and basilosaurid whales (zeuglodonts). The idea that such creatures might have survived to the present day without leaving any fossil record really is untenable based on what we know, and the annoyingly persistent suggestion that cœlacanths demonstrate how a group of Mesozoic marine animals might persist without leaving any fossil record is a red herring. [1]

In any case, the prehist­oric survivor paradigm (or PSP) really isn’t the best explanation for the crypto­zoological data. Modern sea monster reports really don’t describe creatures that sound at all like the fossil animals they’re sometimes likened to. Long-necked sea monsters sound only very superficially like plesiosaurs; the modern creatures are reportedly hairy, have whiskers or external ears, can hold their heads and necks well out of the water in an erect pose, and are sometimes noted as lacking tails. If such creatures are real, it seems reasonable to interpret them as weird marine mammals (perhaps as large peculiar seals), not as strongly modified post-Cretaceous plesiosaurs.

Long-bodied sea monsters – apparently able to form hoops, loops and a series of waves along the body – cannot be basilosaurid whales, which were incapable of oscillating in this way and are absent from the fossil record for the last 30 million years at least. The fact that basilosaurids were conventionally (but very incorrectly) reconstructed as serpentine creatures capable of furious vertical wriggling has helped fuel the notion that they might have been the ancestors of modern sea serpents.

Bernard Heuvelmans regarded two of his nine sea monster kinds as basilosaurids. However, rather than regarding the long-bodied, serpentine types as modern representatives of this group, he proposed that the armour-plated ‘many-finned’ and bumpy-backed ‘many-humped’ were both basilosaur­ids. His logic was somewhat obtuse: absolutely integral to his identification of the ‘many-finned’ was his interpret­ation of the 1883 Vietnamese con rit account conveyed by Dr A Krempf in 1921. Yet this account described a gigantic segmented creature, covered in plate-like armour sheets that “rang like sheet metal” when struck. This fantastic description remains an enigma, but Heuvelmans’s conclusion that the creature was an armour-plated whale is peculiar and rests on the idea that basilosaurids were armoured, a proposal that had been disproved decades earlier.

While it might seem like an unfair criticism, a major theme that emerges from these considerations of the PSP is that those who have endorsed it are often behind the times as regards the state of palæontological knowledge, or have indulged in a remarkable amount of special pleading and speculation. Ideas about plesiosaur and basilosaurid survival seem to have been influenced by popular artwork more than by technical data. Sea monsters might be real, but we’re really not at the stage where we can say what they are. Interesting things can be done with the data we have (whether or not it represents sightings of unknown giant creatures), but the main problem afflicting the cryptozoological literature concerns interpretation. It’s evident that more intellectual rigour is often needed within the field.

In the first workshop session that followed the talks, Charles – working with a bold volunteer from the audience – used ‘fishes’ (marked straws) in a bucket to show how biologists can generate hypotheses about species divers­ity in the deep sea. With every handful, a different combination of ‘spec­ies’ is trawled up, and by counting the new ones Charles was able to generate a discovery curve. As is the case in the real world, the curve of the discovery graph rose to a plateau, but problems in distinguishing the new ‘species’ from those encountered earlier on in the experiment echoed a huge, genuine problem that plagues diversity studies.

In another workshop event, we used a computer program to show how extinct­ion dates can be estimated for extinct (or supposedly extinct) organisms. When good ‘proof of life’ data (that is, dates) are available, the computed extinction results look robust. However, a spotty or gappy pre-extinction record results in uncertainty over the extinction date – and here’s the fun part – because the creatures affected by such results are sometimes those hypothesised to have survived later than ‘officially’ thought. Cœlacanths, Steller’s sea cows, thylacines, megatooth sharks and many others were all subjected to the treatment. This technique has great promise and enables hypotheses about ‘prehistoric survivorship’ to be properly tested.

Overall, the meeting was a great success, and our interested audience made wholly positive noises about the event. Frankly, it was good to be at a crypto­zoology-themed event where scientific approaches were very much to the fore. Indeed, what might be the take-home message from the day was that crypto­zoological data and hypotheses are very much amenable to scientific testing. It goes without saying that there remains an enormous role for amateurs within the field of mystery animal research.

In a 2004 Nature article (yes, Nature: one of the most august scientific journals in the world), Henry Gee – inspired by the then-new discovery of the small, recently extinct hominids of Flores – wondered whether it really is time for crypto­zoology to “come in from the cold” and be recognised as a valid scientific endeavour. Some might say this already happened back in the 1980s when the International Society of Crypto­zoology published its technical journal Crypto­zoology, but such efforts seem all but forgotten nowadays and the death of the ISC arguably created the impression that crypto­zoology is a fringe discipline best avoided by anyone serious about doing science. The fact is, we seem to be at the start of what is (I hope) a modest renaissance in ‘scient­ific crypto­zoology’. Charles and I – and others – have published several crypto­zoological analyses within the pages of technical journals, such as the august Journal of Zoology and Historical Biology, and we have other technical studies in preparation. How far can we go with this, and can cryptozoology really ‘come in from the cold’?

Source: forteantimes.com

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

What lurks beneath the dark waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness? Newly released documents on display Tuesday in Scotland show that during the 1930s, police in Scotland were convinced some sort of creature inhabited the Highlands lake — so sure, in fact, that they worried about how to protect it from big-game hunters.

The files from the National Archive of Scotland show that local officials asked Britain’s Parliament to investigate the issue and confirm the monster’s existence — in the interests of science.

“That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness now seems beyond doubt,” wrote William Fraser, a senior police officer, “but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful.”

The Nessie Files, kept secret for 70 years, were revealed as part of an exhibition on government secrecy. The exhibit examines how governments once kept almost everything secret, and how attitudes evolved to move toward more open government in modern times.

Nessie, of course, was the epitome of mystery. The loch in which the monster is said to swim is the deepest inland expanse of water in Britain. At about 750 feet (230 meters) to the bottom, it’s even deeper than the North Sea.

The legend of what lies beneath the surface dates to 565 A.D., when an early Christian, St. Columba, is recorded as having driven away a water monster by the power of prayer, the National Archive said.

The documents also offer a glimpse of the collision of centuries-old lake lore with an emerging mass media — a modern effort to document a long-held superstition. The search grew feverish in the 1930s after a surgeon snapped a (now discredited) photo of a black dinosaur-like head rising from the depths.

Archivist Tristram Clarke said the letters reveal that some people sincerely believed there was a monster in the loch — though the cool response from the government suggests there plenty of detractors. If nothing else, Clarke said the Fraser letter proves that the police were under pressure to protect the monster — whatever it was.

Fraser’s letter to officials in London warned that he feared hunters Peter Kent and Marion Stirling were “determined to catch the monster dead or alive” and planned to use a “special harpoon gun.”

Kent was preparing a major operation including 20 experienced hunters and Fraser said he warned of the “desirability of having the creature left alone.”

The idea didn’t get very far in the end. The files show that it was deemed better not to kill the monster — or the myth — by stationing cameras or observers around the lake.

Though the sightings proved to be a hoaxes, they didn’t stop a Nessie-spotting tourism industry from springing up, together with three-humped cuddle toys, T-shirts and mugs.

“I think Nessie is such an iconic part of Scotland,” Clarke said. “The legend lives on. It’s almost part of Scotland’s identity.”

Though the number of sightings has tailed off recently, devoted believers continue to scour the loch. Gary Campbell of the Official Loch Ness monster club lives in hope of finding Nessie one day.

“Fourteen years ago I saw a hump break the water on the loch, I took a double take and then more of it appeared,” he said. “I haven’t seen anything since, but I keep looking. It probably cost me my social life.”

The faithful have long speculated about what the monster is. Some suggest a completely unknown species, or a sturgeon, or even a last surviving dinosaur.

“The reason why the Nessie myth persists is it such a good story,” said Lee Barron, a lecturer in media and culture at Northumbria University. “We get a sense of wonder out of the ‘what ifs’ of it all.

“There are lots of monster in the lake myths around the globe, including the U.S. and Europe, but because of the sightings, the fake photos and the romance of Loch Ness, Nessie is the greatest of them all.”

Source: news.yahoo