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Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 ~ Have your say...

Sea Monster in Alaska... Could it be the elusive Cadborosaurus?

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Something big is swimming in the sea near Alaska...  A video captured in 2009 by an Alaskan fisherman shows a creature moving along the surface of the water that resembles the sea monster, Nessie.  Some are claiming that the animal is a "Cadborosaurus", a creature that was got its name from Cadboro Bay, in British Columbia, Canada.


People who have seen the creature generally describe it as having a horse-like head, large eyes, a long neck, and bumps on its back.


Andy Hillstrand (from the show Deadliest Catch) and his brother Johnathan traveled to sites in Alaska where Cadborosaurus has been spotted. Referring to one location, he said, "We saw a big, long white thing moving in the water. We chased it for about 20 minutes.  Spray came out of its head... it was definitely not a shark. A giant eel may be possible, but eels don't have humps that all move in unison. I've never seen anything like it before.".  Kind of sounds like a whale to me...


Watch the video here:


Sightings of "Cadborosaurus" have been reported for years.  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, in British Columbia. Samples of the animal were brought to the Provincial Museum in Victoria, where it was concluded that they belonged to a fetal baleen whale.


Like other cryptids (Bigfoot, El-Chupacabra, Mokele-Mbmembe, to name a few), "Cadborosaurus" has existed only in grainy photographs, shaky videos, and eyewitness accounts.  And there it shall remain, until legitimate scientific evidence is presented.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011 ~ Have your say...

The hunt for mokele-mbembe: the Congo dinosaur

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Mokele-mbembe - Almost Like Nessie

In the Lingala language, Mokele-mbembe literally means, "the one who stops the river". Just like Nessie, the Mokele-mbembe is said to be a living dinosaur of the sauropod kind which dwells in the Republic of Congo in the depths of the Likouala swamp region. Loosely, it is analogously comparable to Nessie, or the Loch Ness Monster of the Scottish Highlands.

According to eyewitnesses, especially the natives, the Mokele-mbembe have the body of an elephant, three clawed feet, with long reptile-like neck. It is hairless, and is said to be gray, brown, or reddish brown in color with very a long tail.

The First Mention

The first recorded mention of witness related to the Mokele-mbembe is dated back to 1776, in a book by Abbe Lievain Bonaventure which reports the exhibition of the French missionary to the Republic of Congo to explore the animals, plants and people of the region. The team stumbled upon a three clawed foot print, which was said to be three feet wide. When they asked the natives, they told the story of the river monster.

Spirit of the Congo River Basin

While most who had witnessed it believes that it is a living sauropod dinosaur, many elderly pygmies believe the folklore that the Mokele-mbembe is only an apparition of the spirits dwelling in the Congo River Basin. They believe in animism, that an immortal godlike being inhabits the Mokele-mbembe and serves as the guardian of the region. Because of these, they believe that Westerners should stop doing expeditions, leave it alone and treat the Mokele-mbembe with respect, or macabre shall befall them.

The Smithsonian Tragedy

During 1919 to 1920, the Smithsonian Institution sent 32 men on an expedition to the Republic of Congo to collect specimens of plants and animals. They often heard mysterious roars, which were described to be as 'unheard of and didn't belonged to any known being'. They also stumbled upon huge, unexplained trails. During a train ride, they had to go through a flooded area. It was said that villagers around there were screaming and terrified because they saw the Mokele-mbembe, and it was the cause of the flood (consistent to its name, 'one who stops the river').

However, it ended in tragedy as the train suddenly derailed, which killed four members, and seriously injuring 6 others. This was consistent to the folklore of the macabre befalling those who angers the Mokele-mbembe. This expedition was documented in the H.L. Shantz papers.


According to the Skeptic's Dictionary...

"Cryptozoologists argue that since a coelacanth was caught off the coast of South Africa, it is reasonable to think that a dinosaur might also have avoided detection for a few million years. However, there is a big difference between finding a fish thought to be extinct and finding a dinosaur. The fish is small and lives in the ocean. Oceans cover two-thirds of the earth and have depths of up to 35,000 feet. That is a lot of space to hide specimens and fragments of specimens. Dinosaurs are massive (at least the mokele-mbembe kind), occupied the third of the earth mostly visible to its other inhabitants, and thus would be much more likely to be detected than the coelacanth."  Well said.


Forever In Pursuit

So, is it a spirit? Is it a cryptic animal yet to be discovered that has eluded humans for ages? Dubbed as the 'last living dinosaur', the Mokele-mbembe is still hot in pursuit. Most believe that eye witnesses see what they want to see, or actually see the shape of another animal, thinking it is the Mokele-mbembe.

Even after 30+ expeditions over the years, the Mokele-mbembe still had not been found. There is no genuine, legitimate physical evidence that has been collected. Although ardent researchers and cryptozoologists do believe that there are living dinosaurs hiding in the depths of the wild today, with the Mokele-mbembe being one of them, there's no evidence ample enough to prove its existence.





References:

Saturday, May 8, 2010 ~ Have your say...

Following Footprints: The Elusive Bigfoot

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Written by guest author Adam Welsh
My first introduction to Bigfoot (or “Sasquatch,” as he’s commonly referred to north of the 48th parallel) was in the film Harry and the Hendersons. In this 1987 comedy, John Lithgow and family run over a strange creature on their way home from a camping trip. For reasons that are still unclear, Lithgow’s character straps the creature to the roof of his car and continues on his way home. There, Bigfoot, or “Harry” in this case, wakes up and terrorizes the home before befriending the family who eventually return him to his rightful place, the wild.
As a young boy at the time, I didn’t know enough to question the absurdity of Harry and the Hendersons, but even in such a state of naivety, I remained unconvinced of the legitimacy of Bigfoot. The basic idea that a colony of Bigfoots (or would they be called Big Feet?) could be roaming around undiscovered to this day, seemed preposterous to me. Surely the number of creatures required to maintain a relatively healthy population level could not go unnoticed for all these years, especially in a world that is quickly becoming devoid of hiding places. Someone would’ve seen something, somewhere, sometime, wouldn’t they?
The idea that one of the world’s secrets had remained unanswered, at least, en mass, was something I found increasingly intriguing as I grew older. To think, that we as humans don’t have all the answers, that some ancient creature with feet so large, that its name origins was derived, was something I could no longer dismiss. I wanted to believe in these creatures that purportedly stand upwards of eight feet tall and top the scales at an eye-popping 500 pounds. These mountains of fur, that patrol the far reaches of Northwestern forests or the shadowy canyons of the Rocky Mountains, away from our curious eyes. The more I thought about it, the more probable their existence seemed. New species are discovered on a seemingly daily basis. Why couldn’t Bigfoot have been just one of many that had slipped through our grasp in our rush to tag everything with a label and bar code?
I officially became a Bigfoot fan, ready to proudly announce my belief at any moment, and denounce any doubter. It wasn’t the creature itself that I feverishly protected, but the possibilities it represented. I was tired of living in a world without mysteries to unravel, secrets to keep, hope of something more than just the present, the everyday, the boring. And so I clung to every sighting, every piece of evidence that there was more out there for us to explore, uncover, experience.
For me, the Pacific Northwest quickly transformed in my mind, into the world’s playground, growing more and more enchanting, with each reported Bigfoot sighting. Dating back to the early 1920’s, there were stories that gave me hope. Fred Beck famously detailed a horrific summer night in July 1924, when he and a group of fellow minors were attacked by several “apemen.” Others tried to dismiss the incident, explaining them away as bored pranksters with too much time on their hands. The reports didn’t stop. They ranged from a terrified mother receiving an alarming wake up call in her British Columbia residence, when a Bigfoot allegedly approached her home, to a Californian bulldozer operator uncovering a series of enormous footprints on the outskirts of his worksite. 

In 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin famously captured footage of a Bigfoot which later became known as the Patterson-Gimlin film. To many, this legitimized their belief. Clear proof of the Bigfoot had now been established, or so it seemed. The non-believers claimed foul play, which many dismissed as an inability to grasp the unknown. Several years later, the non-believers scored a major victory, when Bob Heironimus, an acquaintance of Patterson’s, proclaimed that he was in fact the mysterious Bigfoot, shattering the dreams of many. A polygraph test in 2005 confirmed Heironimus’ claims that he believed he was in fact the man behind Bigfoot in the famous video. 

With the start of the new millennium, it became increasingly difficult to justify or defend one’s stance on the positive existence of Bigfoot. A series of well staged hoaxes throughout the years, in addition to Heironiumus’ crippling admission, had all but eradicated any firm foundation for believers to stake their claim. But things changed suddenly on September 16th, 2007. An image of a potential Bigfoot was captured by Rick Jacobs’ automatically triggered camera attached to a tree. The Pennsylvania Games Commission quickly dismissed the image, saying that it looked like a “bear with a severe case of mange.” It appeared that Rick Jacobs’ photo was just the latest in a long line of dashed hopes for the Bigfoot believers, until a group of scientists examined the photo in-depth in 2008, and discovered the creature’s proportions were not aligned with that of a bear’s. The debate of the Bigfoot was once again on. For the hopeful, there was finally something to point towards and silence their close minded opponents. The doubters could only sigh, and point to a history littered with so called “pieces of evidence” that have been thoroughly dismissed time and again. Why should they concede that this would be any different?
Personally, having stood on both sides of the spectrum with firm footing, I now find myself in an unfamiliar place, a “no man’s land” or sorts. In the end, I go back to the beginning, and look to Harry and the Hendersons for answers: “According to science, Bigfoot doesn’t exist. When you can’t believe your eyes, trust your heart.” Sadly, in reality, I trust my eyes but not the evidence that they see, so in my heart there is no room for Big Foot until that time that I am proven wrong. 
Patiently, I wait.

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