Cryptozoology

gentle lemur said:
I have never seen a snake swimming with its whole body at the surface. I say fake not snake :)

Alan
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It's quite a common way for snakes to swim, have a look at this guy -
This video is an anaconda but from below, but you can clearly see its body is at the waterline the whole time, pay close attention to the head shape too, it's very similar to our snake here -
After rewatching I'm pretty sure I see stripes at the side of the head so could well be a green anaconda, I'm sticking with a definite snake though.
 
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it's interesting you posting the videos of real snakes swimming Devi -- because they show the snakes swimming in exactly the realistic way that the Icelandic hoax doesn't!! For one thing check out the bow-wave coming from in front of the Icelandic one's head, suspiciously like it's propelled by a little motor there! And have a look at the way the body is moving. This is not a live snake.
 
that is brilliant nanoboy. Thanks for posting it :)

(And I know you're expecting me to say "that's already been posted...." but I'm not going to -- Ha! You are the first).
 
Chlidonias said:
that is brilliant nanoboy. Thanks for posting it :)

(And I know you're expecting me to say "that's already been posted...." but I'm not going to -- Ha! You are the first).
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Why thank you!

Are woolly mammoths still out there, undiscovered? Yeah, the frozen ones. :D

I think there are still a few surprises in store for us re: new species, and the rediscovery of species formerly thought to be extinct, even some really large ones - especially in the oceans. But a creature of this size, to go unnoticed, in a region where there are more than a handful of hunters, seems a bit too hard to believe. Tell me that there is an alien space craft on the dark side of the moon, however, and I will readily believe you. :D
 
nanoboy said:
Did anyone post this woolly mammoth video yet? Anyway, here you go (again?): Woolly mammoth caught on video? It looks fishy - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience - msnbc.com

It always amazes me that the people that witness these unbelievable events have the crappiest cameras ever made.
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That's one of those ace videos where you see whatever you see what you're told to. I took a while to make out the elephant shape, but it is there, I can also make it out as a beaver, a capybara, an otter and a moose type thing. When they said a bear with a fish in it's mouth, suddenly I could see that too.
I'm kinda tempted to copy it onto my own youtube account labelled as a yeti and see if people go for that too.
But on the mammoth account, mammoths have enormous tusks that I reckon would be identifiable even at this distance, so that one's out to start with.
 
Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch | DNA Testing In Bid To... | Stuff.co.nz
23 May 2012

Scientists are turning to genetic testing to see if they can prove the existence of the elusive hairy humanoid known across the world as bigfoot, yeti and sasquatch.

A joint project between Oxford University and Switzerland's Lausanne Museum of Zoology will examine organic remains that some say belong to the creature that has been spotted in remote areas for decades.

"It's an area that any serious academic ventures into with a deal of trepidation ... It's full of eccentric and downright misleading reports," said Bryan Sykes at Oxford's Wolfson College.

But the team would take a systematic approach and use the latest advances in genetic testing, he added.

"There have been DNA tests done on alleged yetis and other such things but since then the testing techniques, particularly on hair, have improved a lot due to advances in forensic science," he told Reuters.

Modern testing could get valid results from a fragment of a shaft of hair said Sykes, who is leading the project with Michel Sartori, director of the Lausanne museum.

Ever since a 1951 expedition to Mount Everest returned with photographs of giant footprints in the snow, there has been speculation about giant Himalayan creatures, unknown to science.

There have been eyewitness reports of the 'yeti' or 'migoi' in the Himalayas, 'bigfoot' or 'sasquatch' in America, 'almasty' in the Caucasus mountains and 'orang pendek' in Sumatra.

Tests up to now have usually concluded that alleged yeti remains were actually human, he said. But that could have been the result of contamination. "There has been no systematic review of this material."

The project will focus on Lausanne's archive of remains assembled by Bernard Heuvelmans, who investigated reported yeti sightings from 1950 up to his death in 2001.

Other institutions and individuals will also be asked to send in details of any possible yeti material. Samples will be subjected to "rigorous genetic analysis", and the results published in peer-reviewed science journals.

Aside from the yeti question, Sykes said he hoped the project would add to the growing body of knowledge on the interaction between humanity's ancestors.

"In the last two years it has become clear that there was considerable inter-breeding between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals ... about 2 to 4 percent of the DNA of each individual European is Neanderthal," he said.

One hypothesis is that yetis are surviving Neanderthals. The joint project will take DNA samples from areas where there have been alleged sightings to see whether the Neanderthal DNA traces are stronger in the local population.

As for the project's chances of success? "The answer is, of course, I don't know," said Sykes. "It's unlikely but on the other hand if we don't examine it we won't know."
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Has anybody here ever actually gone on a cryptozoological expedition? I saw on earlier postings in this thread that Pertinax and Chlidonias have been to Tasmania and spent time in historic thylacine habitat.

I had a colleague once who wrote a scientific paper on the use of fecal DNA to track a coyote population in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles. It was published in a respected journal and he was dismayed a couple years later to find that his paper was extensively cited in a book about hunting for Bigfoot.
 
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I haven't been on a cryptozoological expedition but I did keep thylacines in mind when in Tasmania (not that I was expecting to see any of course, but I deliberately visited the site where the last captive one died, and I observed the preponderance of thylacine icons etc on the island). When on Rinca (in Indonesia) I asked a bit about the veo but nobody had a clue what I was on about and hence I retained my original supposition that there was never any such belief on the island and it was all a fabrication from a western book given more weight than it deserved.
 
this thread is always deserving of a bump, so:
Scientists to search for Chinese Bigfoot - Yahoo!7
3 July 2012

It stands at over two metres tall, is covered in dark grey hair, leaves size 12 footprints and goes by the name of the Wild Men - or the Chinese Yeti. And a group of scientists are setting out on an expedition this weekend to prove he really exists.

The existence of the Chinese incarnation of 'Bigfoot' is a tale that has been told for centuries around the Shennongjia forest of China's central Hubei province, with over 400 reported sightings, reports The Telegraph.

In 2005, shepherd in Muyu, near the forests, told Chinese media he saw two creatures with "hairy faces, eyes like black holes, prominent noses and disheveled hair, with faces that resembled both a man's and a monkey's".

Zhang Jinxing, who spent years living in the Shennongjia forest, and said he had seen footprints on 19 separate occasions.

Chinese scientists claim to have found long thick strands of hair which they claim do not belong to any creature in the region, while villagers have reported seeing massive footprints, although no scientific proof of the 'Yeren' has yet been recorded.

This weekend, a group of 38 researchers from several Chinese universities will set out across the Shennongjia Reserve.

They hope to catalogue the ecosystem, collect data on the 1,000-plus animals that live there - including the Golden snub-nosed monkey and white-furred bear - and prove, or disprove, the theory of the Chinese Yeti once and for all.

The last major expedition, in 2010, failed to find any concrete proof and not everybody is convinced this time will be any different.

Zhou Guoxing, a former director of the Beijing Museum of Natural History, said earlier this year: "There is no Wild Man in this world.

"I've visited every place where the Wild Man was reported in China.
"I've studied everything related to the Wild Man including hair, skulls and specimens. All of them are dyed human hair or come from monkeys and bears."
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I would be elated if the Yeti/Bigfoot was proved to exist, however all the evidence points to the fact that it is something that people want to exist rather than something that exists. I am probably guilty of this myself, I am fascinated, I watch just about every tv program about them and I am not too interested in other crypto zoology animals. I know of one tv program a while back, this search was in Nepal and I recall there was talk of a woman who claimed to actually visit one of these animals and she knew where it slept in the woods, in a hollowed out dead tree. All the search party went to the area and they found hair samples and footprints, casts where made, which were said to be too morphologically accurate to be hoaxes (I don’t know how they came to that conclusion) DNA testing was carried out on the hairs and the really interesting fact is that an unknown sequence of DNA in some of the samples hair was found. Unfortunately this story seem to stop here, which is what really confuses and annoys me!. If someone has found a possible lead you would think it should be delved into deeper, unless this like many others was just a hoax to get peoples attention...?
 
Chlidonias said:
I haven't been on a cryptozoological expedition but I did keep thylacines in mind when in Tasmania (not that I was expecting to see any of course, but I deliberately visited the site where the last captive one died, and I observed the preponderance of thylacine icons etc on the island).
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I have been there three times and like Chlidonias above, was not expecting to rediscover a Thylacine, though I wouldn't have minded doing so of course! I probably mentioned previously that as well as seeing the site of the old Hobart Zoo, I also saw the farm where the last (known) wild one was shot (Mawbanna 1930)- the farmstead still had the same name(Batty) so was still evidently in the same hands. I also travelled the island widely, including seeing and staying in much typical 'Thylacine country' on all three trips.

I also talked, over the different visits, to several people involved in both official and unofficial searches and Thylacine mythology generally, some of whom were still convinced (at the time) that it still exists, while others are more sceptical. One that stands out was meeting Alison Reid, the daughter of the curator of the Hobart zoo who has been interviewed many times for articles etc because as a young girl she remembered the animal and something of its behaviour which she recalled to us.

By the time of my third visit in the early 1990's, and with still no irrefutable sightings or proof coming to light during the intervening years, I was far less hopeful that Thylacines still exist in Tasmania, and reluctantly I still hold that opinion today.
 
Pertinax said:
By the time of my third visit in the early 1990's, and with still no irrefutable sightings or proof coming to light during the intervening years, I was far less hopeful that Thylacines still exist in Tasmania, and reluctantly I still hold that opinion today.
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The movie "The Hunter" about Willem Dafoe's search for the thylacine is now out on dvd apparently. Has anybody seen it?

THE HUNTER | ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL DOWNLOAD 8TH FEBRUARY | Official Film Site | Madman Entertainment
 
"best ever" photo of Nessie

The Loch Ness Monster seems a bit mainstream to bother talking about, but this article just popped up and caught my eye. The photographer claims the shot was taken from his boat at a distance of perhaps half a mile. However to me the angle appears to be looking downwards at the water. Either he had an absolutely enormous tower of a boat, or the object is quite a lot closer than he claims. I think it must be a widdle baby monster as well :D

The photo is on the link.

'Best-ever' picture of Loch Ness Monster - Yahoo!7
A man who has spent the last 26 years hunting for the Loch Ness Monster believes he has finally captured the beast on film.

George Edwards has been taking tourists out on his boat, the Nessie Hunter IV, for over a quarter of a century, reports The Daily Mail.

While out on the loch, he saw a mysterious hump dipping in and out of the water so took his boat towards it for a closer look.

He then took a picture of the mysterious shape, which he believes could be proof that, whatever the ‘monster’ is, it is not a sturgeon, as has been touted by experts.

He even claims he has had the sighting verified by a team of US military monster experts.

“I was just about to return to Temple Pier (in Drumnadrochit) and I went to the back of the boat which was facing the pier and that’s when I saw it,” 60-year-old Mr Edwards told the Daily Mail.

“It was slowly moving up the loch towards Urquhart Castle and it was a dark grey colour. It was quite a fair way from the boat, probably about half a mile away but it’s difficult to tell in water.

“I’m convinced I was seeing Nessie as I believe in these creatures. Far too many people have being seeing them for far too long.

“The first recorded sighting was in 565AD and there have been thousands of eye witness reports since then.

“All these people can’t be telling lies. And the fact the reports stretch over so many years mean there can’t just be one of them. I’m convinced there are several monsters.”

“It hung around for a good half-an-hour and used the deep scanning sonar to try and pick it up, but I’m afraid I had no luck at all.”

The photo was taken on November 2 last year, but Mr Edwards says he did not want to release it publicly until it had been sent to America for analysis.

“I did not want to mention my sighting until I was sure that I had not photographed a log or something inanimate in the water,” he said.

“I have friends in the USA who have friends in the military.

“They had my photo analysed and they have no doubt that I photographed an animate object in the water. I was really excited as I am sure that some strange creatures are lurking in the depths of Loch Ness.”

Steve Feltham, a Nessie-hunting specialist who has been hunting the monster for 21 years, added: "It is the best photograph I think I have ever seen.
"I would say it doesn’t prove what Nessie is, but it does prove what Nessie isn’t, a sturgeon which is a fish that has been put forward as one of the main explanations as to what Nessie could be but this hasn’t got a serrated spine like the sturgeon."
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Is the photo available on a computer? The website has been optimised for smartphones and no photo is visible - just text.

It would be awesome if this water kelpie was real. :D
 
nanoboy said:
Is the photo available on a computer? The website has been optimised for smartphones and no photo is visible - just text.

It would be awesome if this water kelpie was real. :D
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what's a "smart phone"...what is this, Star Trek? I am on a computer so I don't know why you can't see it. Anyway, here's another site, this one showing the entire photo (the one in my first link was actually a blow-up, which I didn't realise). I still have trouble believing this was taken from the deck of a boat.
'The most convincing Nessie photograph ever' - YouRTubeNews


Kifaru Bwana said:
I remain skeptical (the pic is a lousy one to glean anything off).
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"skeptical" is a good choice of words :D
 
Chlidonias said:
what's a "smart phone"...what is this, Star Trek?
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What are you? A time-travelling hippie who has never heard of an iPhone? :p

I saw the pic in the other link. It looks like a piece of flotsam to me.

I quite like this quote from the website though:

"He even says image was verified by team of US military monster experts".
 
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