Category Archives: Cryptozoology
Nickell and Watkins discuss cryptozoology at Dragon*Con 2009 (64 mins, 19 secs)
Paranormal investigator Dr. Joe Nickell (Center for Skeptical Inquiry) and Cryptozoology expert Graham Watkins (formerly of the J. B. Rhine institute, author) and both alumni of University of Kentucky but journeymen of very different paths met at Dragon*Con in September 2009 to discuss cryptozoology. Nickell, a long time skeptic, and Watkins, a spirited proponent of parapsychology, effortlessly display a civil discourse on unknown and speculative animals.
A Myth is Found Alive and Well…..sort of… (by virginianopinions)
Wiccans, other pagans, little girls, and many fantasy fans, all secretly believe in their hearts about the powers of the Unicorn. Many cryptozoologists take the subject deadly serious. Now there is scientific proof, that a creature like the unicorn could have existed, and there is a real live unicorn….well almost, it lacks the large size, and it isn’t white, but it does have the single horn feature, with the proper placement, and it hasn’t been glued on….alive and on film, under study, in a repeatable setting….it lives in an injured animal preserve….in Italy. It is obviously a rare genetic defect, that if it occurred once, could be repeatable, and could be the source of the stories of legend…
Click Here To Read The Full Original Post
Nessie’s extinction dismissed
Here’s something I found while doing a little newshounding around on the Web: Apparently, some Loch Ness monster enthusiasts thought that Nessie had become extinct, maybe due to global warming, due to the tailing off of — and this is cute — ‘credible sightings’ over the last two or three years. Well, some other fans of the cryptid of discourse were rather upset about the extinction rumors and dismissed them on the basis of a single sighting made just last year — the only one made last year — deemed credible by the unimpeachable standards of Nessie fans.
Credible sightings? Never mind the fact that unreliable eyewitness testimony, blurry photos, and shaky videos notwithstanding, there’s no credible evidence for the creature. Why have no bloated carcasses of dead Nessies floating to the surface, or bones or other fragments ever been found? Why has nothing unambiguously Nessie-like ever been found to confirm the creature’s existence, oh, I don’t know, like a single specimen?
After all, unless a singular Nessie is literally immortal, there would have to be a fairly large breeding population if them living in the loch itself, considering its size and relative isolation from other bodies of water. That, and the huge food requirements a viable population of animals of the purported size would have would be prohibitive to the existence of such creatures in that locale.
Frankly, while the extinction of Nessie(s) may be beyond the bounds of rationality, completely unbelievable to the creature’s aficionados, I think that’s kind of ironic in that the animal under discussion has never been actually demonstrated real to begin with, but I suppose that that’s neither here nor there.
Check It! Bigfoot Special
Image via Wikipedia
Hey, guys. Tonight’s installment concerns that well-known and suspiciously elusive cryptid of worldwide fame and folklore, and a classic skeptical topic that by rights should have been long debunked since the 1970s, the inspiration for the title character of Harry and the Hendersons, as well as that for the Marvel Comics character Sasquatch, the critter also known as the Yeti, the Yowie, the Almasty, the Mapinguari, and a certain snow man of the Himalayas, like the title of that hideous little abortion of a movie…Abominable.
Aside from the fact that this furry critter has been the subject of recent hoaxes, and failed expeditions to capture or study it, it still has an enthusiastic following, with Bigfoot ‘research’ groups around the country disavowing each other and promoting themselves as ‘the real deal.’ Well, as amusing as rambling on like this can be for my troythuluness, I’ll get to the point now and just present the links and URLs…enjoy.
- …from August of last year, here’s something on the Whitton/Dyer Georgia bigfoot hoax…
- …a blog post on the above on, http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/gg-unravel/ of course, with Loren Coleman trying to save face from the whole embarrassing episode…
- …a link to the Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization site, at http://www.bfro.net/ claiming exclusive scientific legitimacy for itself…
- …here is a page on this ‘hairy giant’ on http://www.unmuseum.org/bigfoot.htm
- …and finally the credulous Searching For Bigfoot HomePage, at http://www.searchingforbigfoot.com/
Check It! Nessie Edition
Hey, guys. This installment deals with links and URls to several pages; critical, credulous, and somewhere in between, of the popular legend of a certain famous loch monster, its history and lore, and the tourist industry that has grown up around the legend, which until recent years has been pretty good for the economy of Scotland.
This is also a favorite paranormal subject for me, as the ‘surviving plesiosaur’ idea for Nessie, as implausible as it is considering what we now know about that group of species, logically connects with dinosaurs–and anything to do with dinosaurs is just way cool to yours truly.
Anyhoo, on with the links…
- …a page on this dubiously substantiated cryptid on http://www.crystalinks.com/loch_ness.html –not too bad by my standards…
- …a page on Nessie on http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/lochness.htm , pretty good, with a video promo for the Disney Water Horse flick…
- …and finally, the home page to what bills itself as, The Legend of Nessie Official website, at http://www.nessie.co.uk/
Well, have fun, people…
A Can of (Mongolian Death) Worms
Well, isn’t this interesting; as usual in the highly professional field of cryptozoology, yet another enthusiast will try to give all those fuddy-duddy closed-minded establishment zoologists™ their comeuppance in his epic quest for the legendary Mongolian death-worm.
Granted, he concedes it’s probably not really a worm. Granted, he concedes that the belief it spits acid from its mouth and lightning from its arse is probably exaggeration if not outright fantasy, but it’s a huge red flag when someone claims he’s going to prove the existence of something without bringing back actual samples of the creature, just by using a documentary he plans to film with a video camera, all he thinks he needs to do.
Your pardon, but how is a video, sans any actual specimens, going to prove anything when any two-bit hoaxer with a camera and a good laptop can easily produce professional-looking footage with great special effects?
Also, I noticed he makes a tired old appeal for his case which is based on his personal incredulity of rumors spreading in thinly populated areas and naiveté concerning the notorious fallibility of eyewitnesses.
This hidebound reactionary gives him a much lower likelihood of actually finding his quarry than the chance he gave of 5% to 15%, as I think he’s being far too generous to himself, but hey, I’m just one of those dogmatic frightened skeptics™, so WTF do I know? (wave tentacles…chortle evilly…).
