When we think of monsters we automatically think of Dragons, of maybe King Kong, or perhaps the Loch Ness Monster. Through myth, media or mystery, such monsters almost become part of our psyche.
However, there is another category of monster – creatures, or even strange people, who seem to invade the world briefly, and then disappear, becoming nothing but a puzzle at the extremities of paranormal literature.
Let’s have a few examples.
DEMON AND GASSER
One night in April 1977 a teenager was driving near Dover, Massachusetts, when he saw an entity with large head, protruding eyes, long, thin limbs and peach-coloured skin. Two hours later, another teenager saw the same entity.
The following night, what became known as the Dover Demon was seen by another teenager for one last time. Researchers subsequently matched the entity to the pygmy Mannegishi, a mythological creature believed in by the nearby Cree Native Americans.
Several decades earlier, in September 1944, the residents of Mattoon, Illinois, were terrorised for nearly a fortnight by a Mad Gasser, a tall, dark-clad man with a tight-fitting hat. First seen as a shadowy figure outside houses, the gasser eventually squirted something into people’s bedrooms, resulting in temporary paralysis.
MOTHMAN
The Mothman terrorised Point Pleasant in West Virginia for several years in the 1960s. A grey, tall creature with wings, no head, human legs and red eyes in its chest, it was seen on over a hundred occasions.
Some researchers associated it with ‘Big-hoot’, a Native American legendary monster, whilst journalist John Keel, who investigated it in the 1970s, associated it with the UFO phenomenon. So engrossed in the case was Keel that he began hearing voices, and all kinds of phenomena exploded around him.
SPRING HEELED JACK
Perhaps the most famous such entity was Spring Heeled Jack, who terrorized Britain from 1837 to 1904.
Described as a cloaked figure with red eyes, pointed ears and talons, he could breathe fire and jump over houses. Usually attacking young women, clawing at them and breathing fire into their faces, it is interesting that such savage attacks didn’t leave permanent injuries.
MY METHODOLOGY
The nature of the above manifestations can be adequately explained by a concoction of hallucination and hysteria. Even the paralysis involved with the Mad Gasser can be put down to sleep paralysis, a phenomenon where the body reacts to the mind at the borders of sleep.
Of course, you may disagree with that brief analysis, but the point I want to explore in this essay is not so much the ‘mechanics’ of the incidents, but what causes them in the first place.
To do so, please accept, for the moment, my above explanation. Also, I want you to imagine that the ‘entities’ experienced came from a common thread of experience, made different only by the culture involved in the experience.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
When we do this, a possible explanation can be found, which also ties in with the more obvious ‘entity’ manifestations such as aliens, vampires and a host more. And it all revolves around what we class as ‘culture’.
In one sense, culture is the collective input of artists, musicians and storytellers, enriching a society and giving it meaning. However, could it also be that culture is a social force in its own right, not only giving meaning, but representation of experience?
In this sense, we can see culture as a kind of ‘over mind’, directing, from above the individual, his thoughts, beliefs and experiences. Hence, life becomes a tug-of-war of ideals born from the individual AND culture.
AN INVASIVE MEDIA
Into this dual form of experience and meaning we can place ‘media’. In effect, media is that form of cultural transmission throughout a culture of current news, ideals and symbols to guide, entertain and inform.
Much of this media outpouring is of no consequence, and is forgotten, but occasionally a ‘story’ arises that continues to fascinate, and can even become part of the overall culture in itself.
Of course, ‘media’, in this sense, is more than newpapers, television, etc. It is also the transmission of gossip, beliefs and stories, which may, or may not be true, but nonetheless can take on a life of their own.
ANGELS OF MONS
Just how fundamental can be this expression of media within culture?
The famed Angels of Mons can offer insight. Appearing when the British Expeditionary Force fought to bring the German onslaught to a halt during World War One, a typical case was that of a Lt Col who reported a retreat during the night, escorted by a column of ghostly cavalry.
Most researchers answer the mystery by way of a short story, The Bowmen, by Arthur Machen. Appearing in the Evening Standard on 29 September 1914, it tells a tale of the British being helped by the appearance of Agincourt archers.
The angels thus become simple battlefield hallucinations common during such campaigns, made more stark by a story upon which to focus. However, as the campaign progressed, stories began to emerge of an even more fundamental nature, removing them from simple hallucinations.
However, as to their validity, we must introduce characters such as Phyllis Campbell, a patriotic nurse at a Mons dressing station. Hearing stories of angels from injured soldiers, she was one of many who went on to embellish the stories in an attempt to prove God was on the side of the British.
GETTING UNDER THE SKIN
We can see, in the above, how a ‘culture’ can be interpreted by ‘media’, leading to the manifestation of phenomena. Normal psychological ideosyncracies are enforced, giving character to what is seen in terms of cultural hopes, fears and desires.
This can work in society as a whole. For instance, if we take the Mad Gasser, fears were high throughout America at the time of attacks from Nazi Germany, including gas attacks. It was inevitable that, somewhere, sometime, such a phenomenon as the Mad Gasser would appear. But why Mattoon?
The city has associations with war in its culture due to the future President Grant taking his first post there during the Civil War. A high spiritual element exists in their culture by being beside an Amish community. Still in their consciousness was a fear of disaster following some 100 deaths during a tornado there in 1917. And the town was, at that time, undergoing an oil boom, complete with fears of gas leaks from the field.
EXPECTATION
We can see, in Mattoon, influences that make it a perfect location for the hallucinated expression of a fear within the society of the United States at that time. Basically, it had to happen somewhere, and Mattoon fitted the cultural bill.
A similar scenario exists with Spring Heeled Jack. He attacked young women at just the time when society decreed, through an increasingly militant feminism, that they didn’t automatically have to be chaperoned at night. Indeed, attacks in London increased when the Mayor spoke in public of the dangers of such attacks.
As for the Dover Demon and Mothman, they appeared at just the time that America had a growing New Age movement which pricked the conscience of America as to its treatment of Native Americans. Indeed, their mythological ‘beings’ were popping up all over the place, the most famous being Sasquatch, or Bigfoot.
A POPULARITY CONTEST
It is here that we can see the importance of studying these ‘monsters’ at the edge of paranormal literature. Caused by cultural expression leading to phenomena, Sasquatch shows their future progression if they capture culture’s imagination in a big way. They become, in effect, national, or even global, phenomena, and continue to be sighted.
With this information, their importance is equally enlarged. Consider the idea that the UFO phenomenon could be a cultural expression arising at the time that we dreamt of going into space.
The present UFO flap began in 1947, and the sighting by Kenneth Arnold that produced global headlines. And within ten days, a flying saucer ‘crashed’ near Roswell, New Mexico.
How relevant is the fact that the area contained the only atomic bomb squadron in the world? Where else could it have manifested other than by the leading edge scientific and military unit on the globe?
A CULTURAL DIRECTOR
Paranormal phenomena and cultural expression go hand in hand, with culture the director of what will be manifested, as well as when and where. It is as if an ‘over mind’ above us decides what we will experience.
Even Spiritualism can fall into line with this idea. After all, it is no coincidence that the seminal incident of Spiritualism concerned the two Fox sisters communicating with a ‘dead pedlar’ in New York State in 1848.
Spiritualism gave a new ‘occupation’ to the housewife, with mediums being predominantly women and gaining financial and cultural independence from the practice. How strange that the central moment of the rise of feminism was born from the first feminist conference – in New York State in 1848.
http://beyondtheblog.wordpress.com/2007/09/30/monsters-galore/
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Cottingley Fairies for Sale
Fancy owning a piece of Fortean history? Well I can’t quite offer it I’m afraid but I can literally offer the next best thing!
Cottingley is forever in our minds courtesy of Arthur Conan Doyle and the fairy photographs of Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths from 1917 and 1920. There are so many Fortean aspects and indeed cliches in this case that I shall not rehash them here. Cottingley is currently experiencing a bit of a building boom and new streets are being added, streets with names such as Oberon Way, Lysander Way and Goodfellow Close. There is already a Fairy Dell there. But Main Street survives. This is the street where the girls were staying at the time, specifcially in number 31.
Number 31 was sold in July of 2000, for £57 000. But it now appears that next door is up for sale.
A mere snip at £154 995
The estate agent description inlcudes mention of the fairies:
“Access to the garden from the rear of the property which has a history as the garden featured in the Cottingley Fairies Story.
In July 1917, two young girls claimed to have taken photographs of real
life fairies at the bottom of their garden. When the genius behind the
Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, presented the pictures
to the public as evidence of the existence of fairies, the tale of the
two little girls in Cottingley was immortalised. Like a pebble dropped
into the middle of a pond, the Cottingley tale travelled across the
globe and debated by millions. Every few years, the story is
resurrected and once again enchants a generation.
Despite the confession in her twilight years, Frances Griffiths added
another twist to the story when she insisted that although the photos
were faked, she really did see fairies and played with them at the Beck.
Indeed, even today, many people believe in fairies and refute the
evidence held against the photos which were later admitted to have been
fabricated by the girls themselves.”
Main Street, Cottingley
From comparing photographs and maps I believe that the white building to the extreme right of the picture is number 31 itself.
So – if you want to check out the reality of the Cottingley fairies buy it up now and wander down to the bottom of your garden. Oh and don’t forget to invite me along for the upcoming 91st anniversary party!
http://blogs.forteana.org/node/54
Cottingley is forever in our minds courtesy of Arthur Conan Doyle and the fairy photographs of Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths from 1917 and 1920. There are so many Fortean aspects and indeed cliches in this case that I shall not rehash them here. Cottingley is currently experiencing a bit of a building boom and new streets are being added, streets with names such as Oberon Way, Lysander Way and Goodfellow Close. There is already a Fairy Dell there. But Main Street survives. This is the street where the girls were staying at the time, specifcially in number 31.
Number 31 was sold in July of 2000, for £57 000. But it now appears that next door is up for sale.
A mere snip at £154 995
The estate agent description inlcudes mention of the fairies:
“Access to the garden from the rear of the property which has a history as the garden featured in the Cottingley Fairies Story.
In July 1917, two young girls claimed to have taken photographs of real
life fairies at the bottom of their garden. When the genius behind the
Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, presented the pictures
to the public as evidence of the existence of fairies, the tale of the
two little girls in Cottingley was immortalised. Like a pebble dropped
into the middle of a pond, the Cottingley tale travelled across the
globe and debated by millions. Every few years, the story is
resurrected and once again enchants a generation.
Despite the confession in her twilight years, Frances Griffiths added
another twist to the story when she insisted that although the photos
were faked, she really did see fairies and played with them at the Beck.
Indeed, even today, many people believe in fairies and refute the
evidence held against the photos which were later admitted to have been
fabricated by the girls themselves.”
Main Street, Cottingley
From comparing photographs and maps I believe that the white building to the extreme right of the picture is number 31 itself.
So – if you want to check out the reality of the Cottingley fairies buy it up now and wander down to the bottom of your garden. Oh and don’t forget to invite me along for the upcoming 91st anniversary party!
http://blogs.forteana.org/node/54
Monsters From Scottish Folklore Brought Back To Life
FROM ghosts and goblins to sea monsters and cannibals, Scottish history is littered with tales of the weird and wonderful.
While some Scottish legends have become much-loved parts of our culture, other stories have disappeared into obscurity over the centuries.
Now Glasgow University is set to revive Scotland’s folklore thanks to a new postgraduate course examining mythical creatures, superstitions, beliefs and the storytelling that kept them alive.
Here’s a look at just some of the myths and legends that got handed down through the generations.
MONSTER OF GLAMIS
Legend has it that the Monster of Glamis was a deformed member of the Bowes-Lyon family, who was kept in a secret chamber in Glamis Castle.
The “monster” was alleged to be Thomas Bowes-Lyon, the eldest child of the Queen Mother’s great great grandparents, who was born in 1821.
Official records suggest the child died in infancy but, over the years, rumours spread of his survival.
According to the story, Thomas had an enormous chest with his head running straight into his body and had tiny arms and legs.
BLUE MEN OF MINCH
These mysterious sea creatures lived in the stretch of water between the Isle of Lewis and the mainland.
They looked like humans but had blue skin and would swim alongside fishing boats, making their way through that stretch of water trying to lure sailors into the sea.
Legend had it they would also conjure up storms to wreck ships and that they lived in underwater caves, where they were ruled over by a chief. It was said fisherman could escape them if they were good at rhyming.
BRIGADOON
Although the idea of the village that only appears once every 100 years is now considered a Scottish myth, it actually has its roots in the mythical cursed German village of Germelshausen.
It was this story that inspired composers Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe but, in 1947, a musical set in Germany was a no-no, so they relocated the musical in Scotland.
So the story of the Scots village where the passing of a century seems no longer than one night became part of our national folklore, with tourists still asking guides where they can find it.
KELPIE
Given how regularly the seas around Scotland used to claim the lives of fishermen, it’s no surprise people who lived on the coast had a fear of the water.
And that’s why so many of Scotland’s mythical creatures lived there, including the kelpie.
Haunting lochs and rivers, they would appear to tired travellers as a lost pony with a wet mane.
If you climbed on to the creature, it would charge straight into the deepest part of the water, drowning you in the process.
LEGEND OF SAWNEY BEAN
Scotland’s most famous cannibal has become a mythical figure in folklore and arguments still rage about how much of the story is based on fact.
The story goes that in the 16th century, Bean made his home in a coastal cave near Galloway, where he spawned a brood of more than 40 children and grandchildren.
Together, the clan would ambush, murder and eat people as they passed by, escaping capture for more than 20 years until they were eventually found and executed.
SELKIE
The Scottish version of mermaids were half-human, half-seal creatures who could take their seal skins on and off.
It’s believed they originated in Orkney but Ireland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland all have their own versions.
They often featured in tales telling of how they would lose their skin and marry fishermen, bearing them children before finding their skin again and disappearing back into the sea.
RED CAP
Found among the ruined castles scattered across the Scottish borders, red caps were murderous goblin-like creatures who killed travellers straying into their path.
They would then dye their hats with their victim’s blood and they had to keep killing as, if the blood dried, they would die. Despite wearing spike-clad iron boots, the buck-toothed demons were said to be too fast to outrun and so the only way to escape one was to quote a passage from the Bible.
WULVER
Described as a man covered with short brown hair but with a wolf’s head, the wulver is part of Shetland folklore.
While other mythical werewolves were aggressive, the wulver stayed out of the way, spending its time fishing on a rock still known as The Wulver’s Stane.
The wulver would leave fish on the windowsills of poor families. It’s been 100 years since the last sighting.
BANSHEE
THE word “banshee” comes from the Gaelic “bean shidh” which means “woman of peace”. While different cultures had their own versions, banshees were believed to be women found near streams, washing blood from the clothes of those about to die. In some tales they are described as having just one nostril, one long tooth, webbed feet and long hanging breasts. Some people believed banshees were the spirits of women who had died during child birth.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2008/03/07/monsters-from-scottish-folklore-brought-back-to-life-86908-20342940/
While some Scottish legends have become much-loved parts of our culture, other stories have disappeared into obscurity over the centuries.
Now Glasgow University is set to revive Scotland’s folklore thanks to a new postgraduate course examining mythical creatures, superstitions, beliefs and the storytelling that kept them alive.
Here’s a look at just some of the myths and legends that got handed down through the generations.
MONSTER OF GLAMIS
Legend has it that the Monster of Glamis was a deformed member of the Bowes-Lyon family, who was kept in a secret chamber in Glamis Castle.
The “monster” was alleged to be Thomas Bowes-Lyon, the eldest child of the Queen Mother’s great great grandparents, who was born in 1821.
Official records suggest the child died in infancy but, over the years, rumours spread of his survival.
According to the story, Thomas had an enormous chest with his head running straight into his body and had tiny arms and legs.
BLUE MEN OF MINCH
These mysterious sea creatures lived in the stretch of water between the Isle of Lewis and the mainland.
They looked like humans but had blue skin and would swim alongside fishing boats, making their way through that stretch of water trying to lure sailors into the sea.
Legend had it they would also conjure up storms to wreck ships and that they lived in underwater caves, where they were ruled over by a chief. It was said fisherman could escape them if they were good at rhyming.
BRIGADOON
Although the idea of the village that only appears once every 100 years is now considered a Scottish myth, it actually has its roots in the mythical cursed German village of Germelshausen.
It was this story that inspired composers Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe but, in 1947, a musical set in Germany was a no-no, so they relocated the musical in Scotland.
So the story of the Scots village where the passing of a century seems no longer than one night became part of our national folklore, with tourists still asking guides where they can find it.
KELPIE
Given how regularly the seas around Scotland used to claim the lives of fishermen, it’s no surprise people who lived on the coast had a fear of the water.
And that’s why so many of Scotland’s mythical creatures lived there, including the kelpie.
Haunting lochs and rivers, they would appear to tired travellers as a lost pony with a wet mane.
If you climbed on to the creature, it would charge straight into the deepest part of the water, drowning you in the process.
LEGEND OF SAWNEY BEAN
Scotland’s most famous cannibal has become a mythical figure in folklore and arguments still rage about how much of the story is based on fact.
The story goes that in the 16th century, Bean made his home in a coastal cave near Galloway, where he spawned a brood of more than 40 children and grandchildren.
Together, the clan would ambush, murder and eat people as they passed by, escaping capture for more than 20 years until they were eventually found and executed.
SELKIE
The Scottish version of mermaids were half-human, half-seal creatures who could take their seal skins on and off.
It’s believed they originated in Orkney but Ireland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland all have their own versions.
They often featured in tales telling of how they would lose their skin and marry fishermen, bearing them children before finding their skin again and disappearing back into the sea.
RED CAP
Found among the ruined castles scattered across the Scottish borders, red caps were murderous goblin-like creatures who killed travellers straying into their path.
They would then dye their hats with their victim’s blood and they had to keep killing as, if the blood dried, they would die. Despite wearing spike-clad iron boots, the buck-toothed demons were said to be too fast to outrun and so the only way to escape one was to quote a passage from the Bible.
WULVER
Described as a man covered with short brown hair but with a wolf’s head, the wulver is part of Shetland folklore.
While other mythical werewolves were aggressive, the wulver stayed out of the way, spending its time fishing on a rock still known as The Wulver’s Stane.
The wulver would leave fish on the windowsills of poor families. It’s been 100 years since the last sighting.
BANSHEE
THE word “banshee” comes from the Gaelic “bean shidh” which means “woman of peace”. While different cultures had their own versions, banshees were believed to be women found near streams, washing blood from the clothes of those about to die. In some tales they are described as having just one nostril, one long tooth, webbed feet and long hanging breasts. Some people believed banshees were the spirits of women who had died during child birth.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2008/03/07/monsters-from-scottish-folklore-brought-back-to-life-86908-20342940/
Monsters of the deep still undiscovered
GIVEN their size, you might assume they had all been found by now. But scientists believe the world’s oceans are still hiding giant underwater creatures which have yet to be discovered.
Marine ecologists have predicted there could be as many as 18 unknown species, with body lengths greater than 1.8 metres, still swimming in the great expanses of unexplored sea.
Using statistical modelling, they measured the rate at which new large sea creatures have been discovered since 1830 and found that the rate of discovery is still going strong, with new species being found every year.
Most recently scientists found a new species of jellyfish that is more than 3.5 metres long off the south coast of New Zealand, along with star fish up to a metre wide.
The first full-sized carcass of a colossal squid, a deep-sea monster four metres long, was revealed for the first time earlier this year.
Dr Charles Paxton, a fisheries statistician at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, said: “There are plenty of places these creatures could be hiding.
“They may spend their lives in the middle layers of the oceans and never surface or be in the deep sea canyons yet to be visited, and new discoveries are being made all the time under the Arctic ice cap.”
But for anyone hoping the results could mean that the Loch Ness Monster could still be found lurking in the depths of the famous Scottish loch, Dr Paxton has disappointing news.
He has carried out similar analysis for freshwater species and concluded that mankind has discovered all the large freshwater creatures there are to be found.
“There are small creatures being discovered all the time, but to find species that are more than two metres in length is very rare,” he said. “Normally you would expect the rate of discovery of species in a habitat to level off when there are no more to be found, but with large sea creatures, the rates are still to level out, which suggests we have not found them all yet.
“Sadly for Nessie hunters, I don’t think there is anything hiding in the lochs and lakes of the world any more.”
He said that often legends about mythical sea creatures could be explained by real life monsters of the deep.
“A lot of the mythical sea creatures such as the Kraken and sea serpents can be explained by sightings of sea creatures and mammals that are already known.”
Although humans have been travelling on the oceans for thousands of years, scientists’ knowledge of life beneath the waves is still extremely limited. Most species are only discovered when they are washed ashore or dredged up by fishing boats.
Deep sea exploration and underwater camera technology is now allowing scientists to explore areas that have previously been unattainable. One of the least understood parts of the ocean is actually the midlayers, known as the twilight zone, between 100 and 1000 metres down.
Dr Richard Lampitt, an ecosystems expert from the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University, said: “It is extremely likely that there will be species of significant size still to be discovered in the deep ocean.
“The twilight zone, where natural sunlight is extinguished, has not really been sampled properly so there will be large creatures to be found there too.”
A spokesman for the Marine Conservation Society added: “The mid-layers of the oceans are so unexplored and the sea floor is so massive that there are almost certainly some giants there that are still to be found.
“It makes a very strong case for protecting the oceans, particularly the high seas where not every country has signed up to international treaties.”
Telegraph, London
Fishy tales
KRAKEN
From Norwegian folklore, a creature with tentacles that could embrace a ship and crush the hull. Scientists believe sightings could have been giant and colossal squids.
OAR FISH
The longest bony fish known to science can grow to more than 10.9 metres long. Giant sea serpent sightings could have been oar fish.
MEGAMOUTH SHARK
A deep sea shark first discovered in 1976. It can measure up to 5.4 metres and weigh more than 1.2 tonnes.
COLOSSAL SQUID
The largest known squid species, thought to be capable of growing up to 14 metres long. It is believed to have the biggest eye in the animal kingdom and lives at depths of about 2000 metres.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/monsters-of-the-deep/2008/06/18/1213770733936.html
Marine ecologists have predicted there could be as many as 18 unknown species, with body lengths greater than 1.8 metres, still swimming in the great expanses of unexplored sea.
Using statistical modelling, they measured the rate at which new large sea creatures have been discovered since 1830 and found that the rate of discovery is still going strong, with new species being found every year.
Most recently scientists found a new species of jellyfish that is more than 3.5 metres long off the south coast of New Zealand, along with star fish up to a metre wide.
The first full-sized carcass of a colossal squid, a deep-sea monster four metres long, was revealed for the first time earlier this year.
Dr Charles Paxton, a fisheries statistician at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, said: “There are plenty of places these creatures could be hiding.
“They may spend their lives in the middle layers of the oceans and never surface or be in the deep sea canyons yet to be visited, and new discoveries are being made all the time under the Arctic ice cap.”
But for anyone hoping the results could mean that the Loch Ness Monster could still be found lurking in the depths of the famous Scottish loch, Dr Paxton has disappointing news.
He has carried out similar analysis for freshwater species and concluded that mankind has discovered all the large freshwater creatures there are to be found.
“There are small creatures being discovered all the time, but to find species that are more than two metres in length is very rare,” he said. “Normally you would expect the rate of discovery of species in a habitat to level off when there are no more to be found, but with large sea creatures, the rates are still to level out, which suggests we have not found them all yet.
“Sadly for Nessie hunters, I don’t think there is anything hiding in the lochs and lakes of the world any more.”
He said that often legends about mythical sea creatures could be explained by real life monsters of the deep.
“A lot of the mythical sea creatures such as the Kraken and sea serpents can be explained by sightings of sea creatures and mammals that are already known.”
Although humans have been travelling on the oceans for thousands of years, scientists’ knowledge of life beneath the waves is still extremely limited. Most species are only discovered when they are washed ashore or dredged up by fishing boats.
Deep sea exploration and underwater camera technology is now allowing scientists to explore areas that have previously been unattainable. One of the least understood parts of the ocean is actually the midlayers, known as the twilight zone, between 100 and 1000 metres down.
Dr Richard Lampitt, an ecosystems expert from the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University, said: “It is extremely likely that there will be species of significant size still to be discovered in the deep ocean.
“The twilight zone, where natural sunlight is extinguished, has not really been sampled properly so there will be large creatures to be found there too.”
A spokesman for the Marine Conservation Society added: “The mid-layers of the oceans are so unexplored and the sea floor is so massive that there are almost certainly some giants there that are still to be found.
“It makes a very strong case for protecting the oceans, particularly the high seas where not every country has signed up to international treaties.”
Telegraph, London
Fishy tales
KRAKEN
From Norwegian folklore, a creature with tentacles that could embrace a ship and crush the hull. Scientists believe sightings could have been giant and colossal squids.
OAR FISH
The longest bony fish known to science can grow to more than 10.9 metres long. Giant sea serpent sightings could have been oar fish.
MEGAMOUTH SHARK
A deep sea shark first discovered in 1976. It can measure up to 5.4 metres and weigh more than 1.2 tonnes.
COLOSSAL SQUID
The largest known squid species, thought to be capable of growing up to 14 metres long. It is believed to have the biggest eye in the animal kingdom and lives at depths of about 2000 metres.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/monsters-of-the-deep/2008/06/18/1213770733936.html
Bigfoot Hoaxers Still On the Lam
The hunt was on Wednesday for two North American forest-roaming bipeds, last seen in Northern California, present whereabouts unknown.
Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the Georgia men who claimed to have found a Bigfoot body, were being sought by Tom Biscardi, whose money they absconded with once the frozen “corpse” was revealed to be a hoax.
“We have a contract with these people,” Biscardi, a former Las Vegas promoter now based in Menlo Park, Calif., told Fox News Wednesday morning. “We paid them the money the night before [the press conference.] … They didn’t figure I’d have a turbo heater on that thing to thaw it out before they left California.”
Biscardi wouldn’t confirm where the body was, but it apparently had been moved from Georgia to Indiana. An Indianapolis Fox affiliate was given a look at the “corpse” Monday by Biscardi’s investigator, Steve Kulls.
Asked to confirm rumors that he’d given Dyer and Whitton a $50,000 advance on future earnings from the bogus Bigfoot, Biscardi would say only that “it was a substantial amount of money” numbering in the thousands which came from unnamed “investors.”
Biscardi told Fox’s Megyn Kelly, who’d previously been invited to view the specimen herself, that the rubber Halloween suit had been stuffed full of, well, organic material.
“It was the most macabre thing you’ve ever seen in your life,” he said. “There’s body parts of other animals in there — bones, eyes, tongues, cheeks. It’s just incredible.”
Asked how he could have been fooled, Biscardi argued that it was hard to tell when the thing was encased in a block of ice.
Meanwhile, other Bigfoot hunters nationwide piled on Biscardi, noting that he was perfectly willing to charge for photos of the “corpse” on his Web site before Kulls determined it was fake early on Sunday morning.
“Warrants need to be issued immediately before Biscardi leaves the country,” read a manifesto posted on the Web site of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. “Santa Clara County, California, (where the press conference was held) clearly has jurisdiction to issue the warrants, and all the elements of fraud are present.”
But Nick Muyo, a spokesman with the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office, said jurisdiction might be hard to establish.
“If Tom Biscardi files a police report in Menlo Park, it would originate with San Mateo County,” he said. “But it sounds like Santa Clara, as well as counties in Georgia and Indiana, could also get involved.”
It’s possible that fraud charges could be filed against Dyer and Whitton, as Biscardi seems to want, though it’s not clear whether it’d be a criminal or civil case.
“[Biscardi] freely gave them the money,” noted Jeffrey Turner, police chief of Clayton County, Ga., who fired Whitton as an officer Tuesday but couldn’t locate him to inform him of his termination. “It’d be a civil matter.”
Muyo said that once a police report was filed, then a criminal investigation could be launched.
Kulls, meanwhile, whom the BFRO labeled as “a long-time member of Biscardi’s own gang,” contacted Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo.com on Tuesday to dissociate himself from Biscardi.
“At this time I am breaking any association or cooperation with Tom Biscardi and his company,” Kulls’ statement read, though it also said, “People ask me if [Biscardi] was complicit in this hoax. I honestly believe he was not.”
It may be difficult for Biscardi to claim he was defrauded, as the “24-Hour Sighting Hotline” number posted on Dyer and Whitton’s Web site, BigfootTracker.com, asks for tips related to “leprechauns, unicorns, large cats, dinosaurs,” as well as “Jimmy Hoffa or Elvis.”
As for one scientist who Biscardi said on Friday would be examining the Bigfoot body? He told a news network he’d never been contacted.
Stanford University anthropologist Richard Klein said he was “sorry that my name and Stanford’s name have been brought into this.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,407263,00.html
Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the Georgia men who claimed to have found a Bigfoot body, were being sought by Tom Biscardi, whose money they absconded with once the frozen “corpse” was revealed to be a hoax.
“We have a contract with these people,” Biscardi, a former Las Vegas promoter now based in Menlo Park, Calif., told Fox News Wednesday morning. “We paid them the money the night before [the press conference.] … They didn’t figure I’d have a turbo heater on that thing to thaw it out before they left California.”
Biscardi wouldn’t confirm where the body was, but it apparently had been moved from Georgia to Indiana. An Indianapolis Fox affiliate was given a look at the “corpse” Monday by Biscardi’s investigator, Steve Kulls.
Asked to confirm rumors that he’d given Dyer and Whitton a $50,000 advance on future earnings from the bogus Bigfoot, Biscardi would say only that “it was a substantial amount of money” numbering in the thousands which came from unnamed “investors.”
Biscardi told Fox’s Megyn Kelly, who’d previously been invited to view the specimen herself, that the rubber Halloween suit had been stuffed full of, well, organic material.
“It was the most macabre thing you’ve ever seen in your life,” he said. “There’s body parts of other animals in there — bones, eyes, tongues, cheeks. It’s just incredible.”
Asked how he could have been fooled, Biscardi argued that it was hard to tell when the thing was encased in a block of ice.
Meanwhile, other Bigfoot hunters nationwide piled on Biscardi, noting that he was perfectly willing to charge for photos of the “corpse” on his Web site before Kulls determined it was fake early on Sunday morning.
“Warrants need to be issued immediately before Biscardi leaves the country,” read a manifesto posted on the Web site of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. “Santa Clara County, California, (where the press conference was held) clearly has jurisdiction to issue the warrants, and all the elements of fraud are present.”
But Nick Muyo, a spokesman with the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office, said jurisdiction might be hard to establish.
“If Tom Biscardi files a police report in Menlo Park, it would originate with San Mateo County,” he said. “But it sounds like Santa Clara, as well as counties in Georgia and Indiana, could also get involved.”
It’s possible that fraud charges could be filed against Dyer and Whitton, as Biscardi seems to want, though it’s not clear whether it’d be a criminal or civil case.
“[Biscardi] freely gave them the money,” noted Jeffrey Turner, police chief of Clayton County, Ga., who fired Whitton as an officer Tuesday but couldn’t locate him to inform him of his termination. “It’d be a civil matter.”
Muyo said that once a police report was filed, then a criminal investigation could be launched.
Kulls, meanwhile, whom the BFRO labeled as “a long-time member of Biscardi’s own gang,” contacted Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo.com on Tuesday to dissociate himself from Biscardi.
“At this time I am breaking any association or cooperation with Tom Biscardi and his company,” Kulls’ statement read, though it also said, “People ask me if [Biscardi] was complicit in this hoax. I honestly believe he was not.”
It may be difficult for Biscardi to claim he was defrauded, as the “24-Hour Sighting Hotline” number posted on Dyer and Whitton’s Web site, BigfootTracker.com, asks for tips related to “leprechauns, unicorns, large cats, dinosaurs,” as well as “Jimmy Hoffa or Elvis.”
As for one scientist who Biscardi said on Friday would be examining the Bigfoot body? He told a news network he’d never been contacted.
Stanford University anthropologist Richard Klein said he was “sorry that my name and Stanford’s name have been brought into this.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,407263,00.html
Bigfoot corpse, evidence to be revealed Friday ?
Two Bigfoot hunters claim they have the body of one and plan to release a photo and what they claim is DNA evidence at a news conference in Palo Alto on Friday.
The Bigfoot is claimed to have been found in the woods of northern Georgia by Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, and the claim is being supported by a Bay Area Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi, a multiple local Democratic candidate.
The press release as follows. A site claiming to have the first pics is down, but here’s the link in case it comes back up, although the pic top right is said to be one of the shots currently available. Other sites are suggesting this could be the “real deal;” who knows, we’ll have to wait for the press conference and the proof.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2008
BIGFOOT BODY FOUND
DNA evidence and photo evidence to be presented at a
PRESS CONFERENCE
to be held on
Date: Friday, August 15, 2008
Time: From 12Noon-1:00pm
Place: Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto (A Crown Plaza Resort) 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, California 94306
Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. Menlo Park, California
Tom Biscardi, CEO
BIGFOOT BODY FOUND – EVIDENCE AND DNA DETAILS TO BE PRESENTED AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 15th
FROM 12 N00N TO 1:00PM AT THE CABANA HOTEL-PALO ALTO IN PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA
A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as “Bigfoot” has been found in the woods in northern Georgia.
DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference on Friday, August 15th from 12 Noon to 1:00pm at the Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California, 94306. The press conference will not be open to the public. It will only be open to credentialed members of the press.
Here are some of the vital statistics on the “Bigfoot” body:
*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
*It weighs over five hundred pounds.
*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
*It is male.
*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and
five toes on each foot.
*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are
eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.
http://www.inquisitr.com/2357/has-bigfoot-been-found/
The Bigfoot is claimed to have been found in the woods of northern Georgia by Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, and the claim is being supported by a Bay Area Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi, a multiple local Democratic candidate.
The press release as follows. A site claiming to have the first pics is down, but here’s the link in case it comes back up, although the pic top right is said to be one of the shots currently available. Other sites are suggesting this could be the “real deal;” who knows, we’ll have to wait for the press conference and the proof.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2008
BIGFOOT BODY FOUND
DNA evidence and photo evidence to be presented at a
PRESS CONFERENCE
to be held on
Date: Friday, August 15, 2008
Time: From 12Noon-1:00pm
Place: Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto (A Crown Plaza Resort) 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, California 94306
Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. Menlo Park, California
Tom Biscardi, CEO
BIGFOOT BODY FOUND – EVIDENCE AND DNA DETAILS TO BE PRESENTED AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 15th
FROM 12 N00N TO 1:00PM AT THE CABANA HOTEL-PALO ALTO IN PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA
A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as “Bigfoot” has been found in the woods in northern Georgia.
DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference on Friday, August 15th from 12 Noon to 1:00pm at the Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California, 94306. The press conference will not be open to the public. It will only be open to credentialed members of the press.
Here are some of the vital statistics on the “Bigfoot” body:
*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
*It weighs over five hundred pounds.
*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
*It is male.
*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and
five toes on each foot.
*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are
eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.
 |
| Bigfoot in the freezer |
The Himuro Mansion Haunting
According to urban legend, lying just beyond the city of Tokyo is one of the most haunted locations in all of Japan. The exact location of the Himuro Mansion (or Himikyru Mansion as it is sometimes known) is widely unknown but the legend puts the mansion in a rocky region just beyond the city limits of Tokyo.
The mansion is said to have been home to one of the most gruesome murders in modern Japanese history. Local lore has it that for generations, the Himuro family had participated in a strange, twisted Shinto ritual known as “The Strangling Ritual” in order to seal off bad karma from within the Earth, every half century or so.
The most popular version of the tale states that bad karma would emerge each December (other versions simply say “toward the end of the year”) from a portal on the Mansions grounds. In order to prevent this, a maiden was chosen at birth by the master of the household and isolated from the outside world in order to prevent her from developing any ties to the outside world, which would in turn, jeopardize the effect of the ritual.
On the day of the Strangling Ritual, the maiden was bound by ropes on her ankles, wrists, and neck. The ropes were attached to teams of oxen or horses to rip her limbs from her body, quartering her. The ropes used to bind her appendages would then be soaked in her blood and laid over the gateway of the portal. They believed that this would seal off the portal for another half century until the ritual had to be repeated.
During the last recorded Strangling Ritual it is said that the maiden had fallen in love with a man who tried to save her from the ritual. This “tie” to Earth tainted her blood and spirit and ruined the ritual altogether. Upon learning of the maidens love, the master took up his sword and brutally murdered all of his family members, before finally, in fear of what would soon happen, fell upon his own blade.
This is the basis of the “haunting” of the Himuro Mansion. Local legend has it that these souls of the murdered family wander the mansion attempting to repeat the failed ritual using whomever enters the abandoned building. Blood splashes on the walls are reportedly seen, as if they were flicked from the blade of a sword that had recently sliced through flesh. Many have reported seeing spirits and apparitions dressed completely in white, rinsing cloths and preparing the grounds for the ritual.
Interest in the Himuro Mansion has peaked due to it’s inclusion into the back story of the popular game, Fatal Frame. Here is a quote from Makoto Shibata, Chief Producer of Fatal Frame, regarding the legend:
It is highly unlikely that no police station or newspaper have records of this mass murder taking place just outside of Tokyo.
Regarding the mystery of the location, some believers have offered the notion that the Himuro family has once again taken ownership of the mansion and is currently living there.. but that conflicts with the legend in that all family members were supposedly murdered AND the “firsthand accounts” of events witnessed on the property by locals and researchers.
Another peculiarity of note is that Tecmo advertised the game in North America with the tagline: “Based on a true story,” but without on the original Japanese release. Because of this, some have theorized that the entire legend was fabricated by the game developers.
In conclusion, I have this to say:
Maybe there was a murder and all of this really happened, or maybe it’s somewhat more likely that it was made up by some creative game developers, but I don’t believe we’ll be finding out exactly what that truth is anytime soon .. so why not enjoy the legend of the Himuro Mansion for what it is? A good old fashioned, creepy urban legend.
http://paranormala.com/himuro-mansion-haunting/
The mansion is said to have been home to one of the most gruesome murders in modern Japanese history. Local lore has it that for generations, the Himuro family had participated in a strange, twisted Shinto ritual known as “The Strangling Ritual” in order to seal off bad karma from within the Earth, every half century or so.
The most popular version of the tale states that bad karma would emerge each December (other versions simply say “toward the end of the year”) from a portal on the Mansions grounds. In order to prevent this, a maiden was chosen at birth by the master of the household and isolated from the outside world in order to prevent her from developing any ties to the outside world, which would in turn, jeopardize the effect of the ritual.
On the day of the Strangling Ritual, the maiden was bound by ropes on her ankles, wrists, and neck. The ropes were attached to teams of oxen or horses to rip her limbs from her body, quartering her. The ropes used to bind her appendages would then be soaked in her blood and laid over the gateway of the portal. They believed that this would seal off the portal for another half century until the ritual had to be repeated.
During the last recorded Strangling Ritual it is said that the maiden had fallen in love with a man who tried to save her from the ritual. This “tie” to Earth tainted her blood and spirit and ruined the ritual altogether. Upon learning of the maidens love, the master took up his sword and brutally murdered all of his family members, before finally, in fear of what would soon happen, fell upon his own blade.
This is the basis of the “haunting” of the Himuro Mansion. Local legend has it that these souls of the murdered family wander the mansion attempting to repeat the failed ritual using whomever enters the abandoned building. Blood splashes on the walls are reportedly seen, as if they were flicked from the blade of a sword that had recently sliced through flesh. Many have reported seeing spirits and apparitions dressed completely in white, rinsing cloths and preparing the grounds for the ritual.
Interest in the Himuro Mansion has peaked due to it’s inclusion into the back story of the popular game, Fatal Frame. Here is a quote from Makoto Shibata, Chief Producer of Fatal Frame, regarding the legend:
“In an area outside Tokyo, there lies a mansion in which it’s said seven people were murdered in a grisly manner. On the same property, there lie three detached residences that surround the mansion, all of which are rumored to have ties to the mansion’s troubled past. It’s said there is an underground network of tunnels that lay beneath the premises, but nobody knows who made these tunnels or what purpose they served. Many inexplicable phenomenons have been reported occurring on the property. Bloody handprints have been found splattered all over the walls. Spirits have been spotted on the premises… even in broad daylight. A narrow stairway leads to an attic where a spirit-sealed talisman is rumored to be locked away. Men have sought this talisman, only to be found later with their bodies broken and rope marks around their wrists. There’s a crumbling old statue of a woman in a kimono, but its head is missing. If you take a photo of a certain window, a young girl can be seen in the developed picture. These incidents have provoked fear in the people of Tokyo, and many believe that those who live near this area will become cursed. The deaths of those seven people are unexplained to this day.”Now, the question is, did any of this really happen? Probably not. The core allure of this legend is also it’s silver bullet. If such a grisly murder did occur (sources put this between 30 and 80 years ago) in such recent times, where is the record?
It is highly unlikely that no police station or newspaper have records of this mass murder taking place just outside of Tokyo.
Regarding the mystery of the location, some believers have offered the notion that the Himuro family has once again taken ownership of the mansion and is currently living there.. but that conflicts with the legend in that all family members were supposedly murdered AND the “firsthand accounts” of events witnessed on the property by locals and researchers.
Another peculiarity of note is that Tecmo advertised the game in North America with the tagline: “Based on a true story,” but without on the original Japanese release. Because of this, some have theorized that the entire legend was fabricated by the game developers.
In conclusion, I have this to say:
Maybe there was a murder and all of this really happened, or maybe it’s somewhat more likely that it was made up by some creative game developers, but I don’t believe we’ll be finding out exactly what that truth is anytime soon .. so why not enjoy the legend of the Himuro Mansion for what it is? A good old fashioned, creepy urban legend.
 |
| Himuro Mansion Front Gate |
 |
| Himuro Mansion Hallway |
The Tale of The Chinese Wildman
Deep in the mountains of southern and central China there is said to exist a hairy humanoid creature known as the Yeren. Sightings of the Yeren, or Chinese Wildman, date back more than 2,000 years and are still reported today. Described as being a red haired bipedal animal, rising over six feet tall with a peculiarly fat belly and similarly strange pronounced buttocks, the Yeren bears a striking resemblance to many humans found in modern developed countries.
A popular seventeenth-century account from Hubei province reads:
A 1976 encounter witnessed by several local bureaucrats brought the Yeren into the international spotlight for the first time. It is reported that early in the morning of May 14, while on their way home they encountered a “strange, tailless creature with reddish fur” on a rural highway in the Hubei province. The driver pursued the creature with his car, forcing him to scramble up a hill. Roughly halfway up the hill he slipped and came to rest in front of the car, after which the passengers left the vehicle and approached the creature for a closer look.
They described the creature as being over six feet tall, covered in thick brown and purple-red wavy hair, having a fat belly and pronounced buttocks. The eyes were human-like, but the face bearing much more resemblance to that of an ape.
Interest in the Yeren had increased and the first official inquiry was launched in 1961, but was inconclusive as the body, (reported as being slain by road workers) was unavailable to inspectors and formally declared to have been a Gibbon. Later, another formal investigation by the Chinese Academy of Sciences put 110 investigators into the forests of Fang county and the Shennongjia area. No sightings were reported but local witnesses were interviewed and alleged Yeren footprints, hair, and feces were collected.
Over the years investigators have collected dozens of alleged Yeren hairs from all around China and through laboratory examination have found that “the wild man is in the middle between bears or apes and human beings.” Physicists at Fudan University, studying samples from all over China, found that the proportion of iron to zinc was 50 times that found in human hair and seven times that in the hair of recognized primates.
Other studies of note have concluded that the hair was neither human nor known primate hair but from an unrecognized primate with a morphological affinity to humans, which seems to be congruent with witness descriptions of the creature.
Zhou Guoxing, one of the expedition leaders, believed there seemed to be two types of Yeren: “a larger one of about two meters in height, and a smaller one, about one meter in height.” He also reported two types of footprints: “One is large, 30-40 cm, remarkably similar to that of man, with the four small toes held together and the largest one pointing slightly outwards. The other type is smaller, about 20 cm, and more similar to the footprint of an ape or monkey, with the largest toe evidently pointing outwards.”??Zhou, believes that both living and dead specimens of the smaller Yeren are already in scientists’ hands.
According to this source:
Even with all of the reports (some claim over 400 reports in the last 20 years), scientists haven’t definitively proven what the creature is, or even the concrete existence of the Yeren. When theorizing about what the Yeren could be, many zoologists believe the creature is a surviving Gigantopitliccus, a giant bipedal primate believed to have gone extinct roughly 300,000 years ago, and today would share the same habitat.
Another popular theory is that the Yeren are in fact, a small pack of evolved orangutans. A source points out:
http://paranormala.com/tale-chinese-wildman/
A popular seventeenth-century account from Hubei province reads:
“In the remote mountains of Fangxian County, there are rock caves, in which live hairy men as tall as three meters. They often come down to hunt dogs and chickens in the villages. They fight with whoever resists.”Most of the sightings are in the counties of Badong, Xingshan and Fangxian, and therefore the Yeren are thought by most to originate from Shennongjia Nature Reserve in Yichang, but none have actually been discovered there.. or anywhere else for that matter.
A 1976 encounter witnessed by several local bureaucrats brought the Yeren into the international spotlight for the first time. It is reported that early in the morning of May 14, while on their way home they encountered a “strange, tailless creature with reddish fur” on a rural highway in the Hubei province. The driver pursued the creature with his car, forcing him to scramble up a hill. Roughly halfway up the hill he slipped and came to rest in front of the car, after which the passengers left the vehicle and approached the creature for a closer look.
They described the creature as being over six feet tall, covered in thick brown and purple-red wavy hair, having a fat belly and pronounced buttocks. The eyes were human-like, but the face bearing much more resemblance to that of an ape.
Interest in the Yeren had increased and the first official inquiry was launched in 1961, but was inconclusive as the body, (reported as being slain by road workers) was unavailable to inspectors and formally declared to have been a Gibbon. Later, another formal investigation by the Chinese Academy of Sciences put 110 investigators into the forests of Fang county and the Shennongjia area. No sightings were reported but local witnesses were interviewed and alleged Yeren footprints, hair, and feces were collected.
Over the years investigators have collected dozens of alleged Yeren hairs from all around China and through laboratory examination have found that “the wild man is in the middle between bears or apes and human beings.” Physicists at Fudan University, studying samples from all over China, found that the proportion of iron to zinc was 50 times that found in human hair and seven times that in the hair of recognized primates.
Other studies of note have concluded that the hair was neither human nor known primate hair but from an unrecognized primate with a morphological affinity to humans, which seems to be congruent with witness descriptions of the creature.
Zhou Guoxing, one of the expedition leaders, believed there seemed to be two types of Yeren: “a larger one of about two meters in height, and a smaller one, about one meter in height.” He also reported two types of footprints: “One is large, 30-40 cm, remarkably similar to that of man, with the four small toes held together and the largest one pointing slightly outwards. The other type is smaller, about 20 cm, and more similar to the footprint of an ape or monkey, with the largest toe evidently pointing outwards.”??Zhou, believes that both living and dead specimens of the smaller Yeren are already in scientists’ hands.
According to this source:
“One was killed on May 23, 1957, near the village of Zhuanxian in Zhejiang province. A biology teacher had the presence of mind to preserve the hands and feet. When Zhou learned of this in 1981, he went to the site and collected the specimens. After some considerable study he concluded that they “belonged to a kind of large stump-tailed monkey unknown to science.” Subsequently he identified the animal as a stumptailed macaque. Not long afterwards just such an animal was captured in the Huang Mountain region and taken to the Hefei Zoo. Zhou wrote that this specimen is mainly ground-dwelling…. The body is large, about 70-90 cm in standing height. A tall individual could reach one meter. Its extremities are strongly built. It weighs more than 20 kilograms. A large male could weigh over 33 kilograms, while females would be smaller. The back hair is brown in color. The adult male has whiskers, and has a reddish color on the face.”Anthropologist Frank Poirier of Ohio State University has suggested that many Yeren reports are probably sightings of the rare Golden Monkey, which is believed to inhabit the same region. An ironic anecdote tells us that Poirier himself was once mistaken for a Yeren, after villagers who had never seen a Westerner encountered a near-nude Poirier napping by a river.
Even with all of the reports (some claim over 400 reports in the last 20 years), scientists haven’t definitively proven what the creature is, or even the concrete existence of the Yeren. When theorizing about what the Yeren could be, many zoologists believe the creature is a surviving Gigantopitliccus, a giant bipedal primate believed to have gone extinct roughly 300,000 years ago, and today would share the same habitat.
Another popular theory is that the Yeren are in fact, a small pack of evolved orangutans. A source points out:
“Bipedalism has evolved independently in the ape family at least two times, so it is at least slightly possible that this has happened yet again with an isolated population of orangutans.”However plausible either of these theories may be, isn’t it likely that there’s yet another, less colorful explanation invoked by the ironic tale of Mr. Poirier? To us, the tale of an ape-man so closely resembling our friends and family coupled with the cultural ignorance of the locals greatly increases the chance of the recent sightings being an embarrassing tale of a remote vacation gone wrong.
http://paranormala.com/tale-chinese-wildman/
Is the Jersey Devil’s range increasing ?
New Jersey’s pine barrens might qualify as the strangest stretch of woods in the world. It is completely out of place, a huge thick pine forest with only a sparse rural population situated among developed and largely urban New Jersey. The Pine Barrens is just the type of place for a cryptid, and boy does it have one. Of course, I speak of the Jersey Devil.
The most famous tale of the origins of this cryptid is of Mother Leeds. In 1735, the story goes, the good mother had given birth to twelve children. Said to be a witch, Leeds said that if she had child number 13, it would be the devil himself. Variations of the story say that the Devil was the father, but in any case, the child was born completely normal. Within minutes, it killed the midwife, grew a horse’s head, forked tail, wings and hooves and escaped through the chimney and went directly toward the Pine Barrens.
But this may not be entirely true. The Native American Lenni Lenape tribes called the Pine Barrens “The place of the dragon”, and other name places and accounts may suggest an origin that predates Mother Leeds. The first well documented sighting dates from the early 19th century when the famous early American naval commodore Stephen Decatur visited a foundry in the barrens searching for a source for decent cannon balls.
He related a story of seeing a white creature with huge wings flying overhead, and directed cannon fire at it. The story goes that the creature was entirely oblivious to the hole Decatur made in its wing.
Perhaps the most famous person to see the Devil was Joseph Bonaparte. Most people aren’t aware that this older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, and former King of Spain, called Bordentown, New Jersey home for some years. Unwelcome – and perhaps wanted – in Europe he fled France before the capture of Napoleon and bought a lovely rural estate, not far as monster flies from the Pine Barrens. He is said to have seen the Jersey Devil in 1820.
In the 1840′s the Devil was blamed for numerous livestock killings (though one wonders how many of those were actually related to the UFO phenomena). But, unlike many cryptids and paranormal phenomena, the sightings of the devil increased. By 1909 thousands had claimed to see the Jersey Devil, most of them between the dates of January 16-23. Newspapers went wild with the story, Numerous accounts of the horse-faced, winged devil surfaced, and mass hysteria set in. The devil was said to attack a trolley car, schools closed, a local fire department claimed to stave off the monster with a hose, and the local economy screeched to a halt when business owners were too fearful to open their doors.
Sightings continued with regularity throughout the 20th century. But the range of the Devil seems to be increasing. 2008 has already seen two sightings, both well out of the Pine Barrens area, and well out of New Jersey in fact. The first was January in in Litchfield, Pennsylvania, where a farmer saw the creature in his barn.
The second was in Rising Sun, Maryland just a few weeks ago on August 18th, where three people observed the creature flying past their car, landing in a field a short distance away. The Jersey Devil is still with us, unlike many cryptids, and seems to be increasing its range….
http://paranormala.com/jersey-devils-range-increasing/
The most famous tale of the origins of this cryptid is of Mother Leeds. In 1735, the story goes, the good mother had given birth to twelve children. Said to be a witch, Leeds said that if she had child number 13, it would be the devil himself. Variations of the story say that the Devil was the father, but in any case, the child was born completely normal. Within minutes, it killed the midwife, grew a horse’s head, forked tail, wings and hooves and escaped through the chimney and went directly toward the Pine Barrens.
But this may not be entirely true. The Native American Lenni Lenape tribes called the Pine Barrens “The place of the dragon”, and other name places and accounts may suggest an origin that predates Mother Leeds. The first well documented sighting dates from the early 19th century when the famous early American naval commodore Stephen Decatur visited a foundry in the barrens searching for a source for decent cannon balls.
He related a story of seeing a white creature with huge wings flying overhead, and directed cannon fire at it. The story goes that the creature was entirely oblivious to the hole Decatur made in its wing.
Perhaps the most famous person to see the Devil was Joseph Bonaparte. Most people aren’t aware that this older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, and former King of Spain, called Bordentown, New Jersey home for some years. Unwelcome – and perhaps wanted – in Europe he fled France before the capture of Napoleon and bought a lovely rural estate, not far as monster flies from the Pine Barrens. He is said to have seen the Jersey Devil in 1820.
In the 1840′s the Devil was blamed for numerous livestock killings (though one wonders how many of those were actually related to the UFO phenomena). But, unlike many cryptids and paranormal phenomena, the sightings of the devil increased. By 1909 thousands had claimed to see the Jersey Devil, most of them between the dates of January 16-23. Newspapers went wild with the story, Numerous accounts of the horse-faced, winged devil surfaced, and mass hysteria set in. The devil was said to attack a trolley car, schools closed, a local fire department claimed to stave off the monster with a hose, and the local economy screeched to a halt when business owners were too fearful to open their doors.
Sightings continued with regularity throughout the 20th century. But the range of the Devil seems to be increasing. 2008 has already seen two sightings, both well out of the Pine Barrens area, and well out of New Jersey in fact. The first was January in in Litchfield, Pennsylvania, where a farmer saw the creature in his barn.
The second was in Rising Sun, Maryland just a few weeks ago on August 18th, where three people observed the creature flying past their car, landing in a field a short distance away. The Jersey Devil is still with us, unlike many cryptids, and seems to be increasing its range….
http://paranormala.com/jersey-devils-range-increasing/
October 30, 2010 Werewolf reported in Brazil
In a recent report from Brazil a woman claims to have been attacked by a ‘werewolf’ which scratched her arms and face. This is one of a number of such reports in recent years involving ‘werewolf’-like creatures in the region.
São Paulo, Feb 13: Woman claims to have been attacked by ‘werewolf’
According to the victim’s account, the creature looked like a big dog. Police is looking for a suspect that may have used a costume to attack the girl.
The inhabitants of São Sepé, Rio Grande do Sul, [Brazil] have one more reason to fear Friday the 13th. Besides the bad luck and the strange happenings during the day, a ‘werewolf’ is supposedly at large. One of the possible victims, a 20-year-old, recorded her complaint in the police.
According to the police, Kelly Martins Becker claims to have been attacked in the night of January 28 by an animal that looked like a big dog, that was standing on its back feet and walked as if it were a man. She made a sketch of the creature.
According to the complaint, the creature scratched the face and arms of the victim. The police informed that Kelly underwent medical examination, where the wounds were confirmed. Officers also claim they will investigate if someone is using a werewolf costume to scare people. No suspect was arrested until Friday.
AROUND THE COUNTRY
Cases similar to the one from São Sepé were recorded. In the rural area of Tauá, Ceará, locals asked for police help in July 2008, scared with sightings of an individual “half man and half wolf” that was stealing sheep and breaking into houses.
At the time, the police investigated the case, suspecting that a gang was using costumes to scare the locals and commit the crimes. The case, called ‘the midnight mystery’, then became a joke in the city.
In April 2008, some inhabitants of Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul, also had their moments of terror with the attacks of the ‘Man in the Black Cape’. With no solid evidence about the creature’s sightings, the police archived the records as folklore.”
We translated the reports about last year’s incidents, and this one even has a sketch of the creature. It’s relevant to note that São Sepé, the current werewolf-scared city, is near Santana do Livramento, last year’s scared city. Both being small rural cities. The photo above comes from Zero Hora, and the G1 link above has another photo of Kelly Becker and her sketch of the creature.
If you are a diligent Fortean, you will associate this series of reports with popular panics around the world and history, from the more recent Monkey Man in India (c. 2001) going as far back as the Spring-Heeled Jack in England (c. 1837 and onwards).
And those are just the more obviously similar and famous cases. So similar they are almost identical, with only a couple of differences, like the height of the Indian and the Brazilian creatures. Does this make them real?
Curiously, the more you acquaint yourself with numerous similar cases, the more an alternative explanation that sounds terrible at first looks more and more acceptable. It’s mass sociogenic illness. Or, as it’s popularly known, mass hysteria.
It’s a damned expression, due to no doubt much abuse. Robert Bartholomew is the name to look for if you still dread that term. See: Protean nature of mass sociogenic illness – From possessed nuns to chemical and biological terrorism fears.
We shouldn’t keep abusing the term and tagging everything as “mass hysteria” – criminals could be using costumes, and it’s not impossible that an unknown violent bipedal creature is lurking those places. Only highly improbable, the more so as no solid evidence ever comes up.
And the one important thing about ‘mass sociogenic illness” is that though the creatures may not be real, the victims are. They may also be highly educated, intelligent people.
http://forgetomori.com/2009/skepticism/a-brazilian-werewolf-is-back/
São Paulo, Feb 13: Woman claims to have been attacked by ‘werewolf’
According to the victim’s account, the creature looked like a big dog. Police is looking for a suspect that may have used a costume to attack the girl.
The inhabitants of São Sepé, Rio Grande do Sul, [Brazil] have one more reason to fear Friday the 13th. Besides the bad luck and the strange happenings during the day, a ‘werewolf’ is supposedly at large. One of the possible victims, a 20-year-old, recorded her complaint in the police.
According to the police, Kelly Martins Becker claims to have been attacked in the night of January 28 by an animal that looked like a big dog, that was standing on its back feet and walked as if it were a man. She made a sketch of the creature.
According to the complaint, the creature scratched the face and arms of the victim. The police informed that Kelly underwent medical examination, where the wounds were confirmed. Officers also claim they will investigate if someone is using a werewolf costume to scare people. No suspect was arrested until Friday.
AROUND THE COUNTRY
Cases similar to the one from São Sepé were recorded. In the rural area of Tauá, Ceará, locals asked for police help in July 2008, scared with sightings of an individual “half man and half wolf” that was stealing sheep and breaking into houses.
At the time, the police investigated the case, suspecting that a gang was using costumes to scare the locals and commit the crimes. The case, called ‘the midnight mystery’, then became a joke in the city.
In April 2008, some inhabitants of Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul, also had their moments of terror with the attacks of the ‘Man in the Black Cape’. With no solid evidence about the creature’s sightings, the police archived the records as folklore.”
We translated the reports about last year’s incidents, and this one even has a sketch of the creature. It’s relevant to note that São Sepé, the current werewolf-scared city, is near Santana do Livramento, last year’s scared city. Both being small rural cities. The photo above comes from Zero Hora, and the G1 link above has another photo of Kelly Becker and her sketch of the creature.
If you are a diligent Fortean, you will associate this series of reports with popular panics around the world and history, from the more recent Monkey Man in India (c. 2001) going as far back as the Spring-Heeled Jack in England (c. 1837 and onwards).
And those are just the more obviously similar and famous cases. So similar they are almost identical, with only a couple of differences, like the height of the Indian and the Brazilian creatures. Does this make them real?
Curiously, the more you acquaint yourself with numerous similar cases, the more an alternative explanation that sounds terrible at first looks more and more acceptable. It’s mass sociogenic illness. Or, as it’s popularly known, mass hysteria.
It’s a damned expression, due to no doubt much abuse. Robert Bartholomew is the name to look for if you still dread that term. See: Protean nature of mass sociogenic illness – From possessed nuns to chemical and biological terrorism fears.
We shouldn’t keep abusing the term and tagging everything as “mass hysteria” – criminals could be using costumes, and it’s not impossible that an unknown violent bipedal creature is lurking those places. Only highly improbable, the more so as no solid evidence ever comes up.
And the one important thing about ‘mass sociogenic illness” is that though the creatures may not be real, the victims are. They may also be highly educated, intelligent people.
http://forgetomori.com/2009/skepticism/a-brazilian-werewolf-is-back/
Hellhound reported around Cannock Chase
A large black dog dubbed a ‘hellhound’ has been sighted around Cannock Chase. Also known as the “ghost dog of Brereton” the creature has been described as large, black and muscular with glowing eyes.
Forget Bigfoot, panthers and UFOs…there’s something even more chilling on Cannock Chase.
It’s time for the fabled Hellhound – a portent of doom – to take a bow-wow.
Reports have been received on paranormal websites of the demonic dog roaming our area.
The hound, also known as the ‘ghost dog of Brereton,’ has been seen on numerous occasions stalking the roads leading into Brereton.
The apparition has been described as large, black, muscular, with sharp pointed ears and strangly glowing eyes. British folklore indicates that the black dog forewarns death.
The most prominent sightings happened in the 1970s, and early 1980s. Whilst driving through the Chase in 1972, Nigel Lea described seeing a ball of light crash into the ground.
He slowed down to take a closer look and was confronted by ‘the biggest bloody dog I have ever seen.’
Within a month one of Mr Leas close friends died in a terrible industrial accident, which Mr Lea believed may be connected to the dog appirition.
In the January, 1985, there was another report of the hell hound stalking Coal Pit Lane, Brereton. Mrs Sylvia Everett, of Cannock Wood Road, described a strange misty figure moving across the road as she and her husband drove on a warm and clear summer night. Although they could not explain the incident, Mrs Everett believed that it may have been connected to the to the dog-lore of Brereton.
Traditionally, demonic dogs are associated with grave yards, bridges, water, crossroads and places connected with violence and death.
Approaching Brereton on the Rugeley Road you come to an ideal crossroad, where the Rugeley Road, Colliery Road, Stile Cop road, and Startley Lane meet. The area is also associated with the former Lea Hall and Brereton Collieries – hazardous places where workers at times met with terrible accidents.
Could there be a connection between these sights and the spectral hound?
http://www.chasepost.net/news-in-cannock/cannock-burntwood-news/2009/03/12/hellhound-stalking-cannock-chase-93633-23130526/
Forget Bigfoot, panthers and UFOs…there’s something even more chilling on Cannock Chase.
It’s time for the fabled Hellhound – a portent of doom – to take a bow-wow.
Reports have been received on paranormal websites of the demonic dog roaming our area.
The hound, also known as the ‘ghost dog of Brereton,’ has been seen on numerous occasions stalking the roads leading into Brereton.
The apparition has been described as large, black, muscular, with sharp pointed ears and strangly glowing eyes. British folklore indicates that the black dog forewarns death.
The most prominent sightings happened in the 1970s, and early 1980s. Whilst driving through the Chase in 1972, Nigel Lea described seeing a ball of light crash into the ground.
He slowed down to take a closer look and was confronted by ‘the biggest bloody dog I have ever seen.’
Within a month one of Mr Leas close friends died in a terrible industrial accident, which Mr Lea believed may be connected to the dog appirition.
In the January, 1985, there was another report of the hell hound stalking Coal Pit Lane, Brereton. Mrs Sylvia Everett, of Cannock Wood Road, described a strange misty figure moving across the road as she and her husband drove on a warm and clear summer night. Although they could not explain the incident, Mrs Everett believed that it may have been connected to the to the dog-lore of Brereton.
Traditionally, demonic dogs are associated with grave yards, bridges, water, crossroads and places connected with violence and death.
Approaching Brereton on the Rugeley Road you come to an ideal crossroad, where the Rugeley Road, Colliery Road, Stile Cop road, and Startley Lane meet. The area is also associated with the former Lea Hall and Brereton Collieries – hazardous places where workers at times met with terrible accidents.
Could there be a connection between these sights and the spectral hound?
http://www.chasepost.net/news-in-cannock/cannock-burntwood-news/2009/03/12/hellhound-stalking-cannock-chase-93633-23130526/
Mysterious creatures of New Zealand
New Zealand is believed by some cryptozoologists to be home to all manner of undiscovered and extinct creatures, from a new species of otter to the moa to the kokako. Discovering any of these alive could reshape what we know of the country’s natural history.
It was a dark and stormy night.
OK, says Vicki Hyde, president of the New Zealand Skeptics, so it wasn’t stormy. But it was dark.
And there was something out there. Big, black, bulky. Just sitting there, watching.
“We stared. It stared back.”
She threw a shoe. It didn’t move. “Too big for an ordinary cat. Too still for a dog. Too quiet for a possum.”
A quick dash inside and the outside lights went on to reveal: an upended bucket.
“Did we feel silly? You bet.”
It can happen to anyone, says Hyde. Mistaken identification leads to incorrect assumptions and misperceptions, she writes in her new book Oddzone.
“It doesn’t mean you’re foolish or stupid or insane. Just human.”
And humans love a good mystery. Is there a yeti in the Himalayas? A Nessie in the Loch? A moose in Fiordland?
The hunt for a remnant population of moose liberated in New Zealand bush in the early 1900s is more than three decades old. So is the search for the South Island kokako, last reliably sighted in the 1950s and 60s. Student filmmakers recently went on the trail of a mysterious black cat in Canterbury. And now moa are back in the headlines, with news that next month, an Australian researcher will cross the ditch to find a colony of the giant birds in Te Urewera.
Who are these people who devote lifetimes to the hunt for the unknown?
Ken Tustin, 62, has amassed around 600 nights in the Fiordland bush trying to prove the existence of moose. The closest he has come is the collection of stray hairs, DNA-tested by scientists in Canada, who say his theory is almost certainly correct.
“I read articles saying I’m obsessed,” says Tustin. “I think [my story] tells kids, hey, in 2008, there are some great adventures still to be had. There are unsolved things and wonderful mysteries out there.”
He knows he’ll need photographs to silence the critics some people say the hairs prove nothing more than that the hunter has been hoaxed. Tustin, and his wife Marg, have had remote cameras in the bush for years.
“We’ve probably put about 10,000 camera nights into it.” So far, no moose “and about 2000 red deer”.
He says it’s a lovely personal challenge.
“Man thinks he controls the planet but, in effect, we’re being outfoxed by a very large, charismatic animal.”
For researchers like Tustin, and 60-year-old Rhys Buckingham, who is convinced the South Island kokako still exists, the common thread is begrudging admiration for their prey.
“How come you can’t find a thing the size of a horse?” Buckingham asks Tustin.
“How is it you can’t find a stupid squawking crow?” retorts Tustin.
What keeps the pair going?
“You’ve got to have some mystery in your life,” says Buckingham who is fitting in a phone interview around two three-day dance parties.
He says the South Island kokako is an incredible songbird and he believes he has collected numerous tape recordings of the bird that’s been dubbed “the grey ghost”. Naysayers reckon he’s simply recorded tui.
“I used to be more obsessed when I thought there was a chance to save it from extinction,” says Buckingham.
“I’m getting more disillusioned now, with what appears to be a calamity facing much more common birds, with stoat and rat plagues. I think I’m too late, I haven’t been successful… it would be so magnificent to save it from extinction.”
THE MOOSE and the kokako did, at least, once exist. But are there other, more mysterious creatures roaming New Zealand?
In 1966, the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand included a section headed “Animals, Mythical”. “Numerous tales of monsters, ogres, goblins and fairies, and weird `hairy men’ who devoured unwary travellers and waylaid hunting parties have long been part of Maori lore,” it said. “In all probability, such tales of water-dwelling monsters and other huge reptiles known as kumi were nothing more than distorted folk memories of the crocodile of the western Pacific or Asia.”
The entry gives slight credence to the waitoreke an aquatic, otter-like creature. Julius von Haast was believed to have acquired a portion of skin from the supposed animal. Charles Darwin wrote a letter, now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, querying its existence: “If I have not utterly exhausted your patience, I should be particularly obliged if you would inform me whether you think the evidence is really good that there formerly existed some animal (with hair?) like an otter or Beaver: I am much surprised at this. Could it not have been any water bird or reptile?”
Lemuel Lyes, archival researcher with Natural History New Zealand, says the existence (or otherwise) of the waitoreke is important even if it is now extinct. “If it could be proven to have existed once, then perhaps that would shatter some conceptions about New Zealand’s natural history.”
Here’s a theory: New Zealand is rumoured to have been visited by Tamil explorers. Te Papa Museum records the 1836 discovery of a ship’s bell, inscribed with ancient (at least 500 years old) Tamil script, being used by Whangarei Maori as a cooking pot. As it happens, says Lyes, Tamil sailors were known to use tame otters to catch fish. “Maybe, pre-Tasman days, some Tamil lost their otter?”
Lyes says it’s feasible a small number of the animals could exist undetected. “We’re supposed to have this huge population of stoats and weasels and things, yet how many New Zealanders have actually seen them? What’s to stop small pockets of otters living in some sanctuary down south?”
Cryptozoologists the name given to people who study creatures whose existence has not been substantiated say there is a very good chance of discovering unknown animals in New Zealand.
According to Hawke’s Bay-based researcher Tony Lucas, “We still have many areas in the South Island which remain relatively unexplored. These remote regions hold the best hope of harbouring a new, or previously thought extinct, species.”
This is the country, after all, that gave up the takahe half a century after it was thought to be extinct. The Chatham Islands taiko had not been seen for 111 years until it was dramatically rediscovered on New Year’s Day in 1978. And as recently as 2003, the New Zealand storm petrel, gone for 150 years, was sighted off the coast of Whitianga.
But how about those reports of a giant black cat in Canterbury? Last year, Mark Orton, a former film student who now works for Natural History New Zealand, trekked the region collecting eyewitness sightings for a documentary called Prints of Darkness. “I can only tell you what I saw,” Toni May tells the camera. “I can’t tell you what it is.”
If it was a feral cat, says another interviewee, “it was an Arnold Schwarzenegger of a cat”.
The rogue panther is an international cryptozoology mystery similar stories frequently circulate in United Kingdom and Australian media.
“The characters we featured in our film were not nutters,” says Orton. “They firmly believe in what they saw.”
His personal theory? “I think there’s possibly a rather large breed of feral cats. They’ve probably thrown up the black gene through years of interbreeding. Through their stealth and willingness to survive, the black cats have had the biggest success and they’re the ones thrown up more often than not.”
The filmmakers based themselves at Panther’s Rock Tavern, Mayfield. The pub got its name in retrospect and now hangs a mock big-cat road sign in the bar. Orton says locals laugh at the story of giant felines. “They’ve made fun of people in the community who have been open enough to admit the story. Some of the people we ended up putting in the film didn’t go to the mainstream media because they didn’t want the exposure.”
REX GILROY knows how they feel. The 64-year-old bills himself as the “father of Australian cryptozoology”. Next month, he and his wife Heather will travel to New Zealand to search for moa in Te Urewera where they claim to have previously found moa tracks and a nesting site.
“A lot of people are frightened to go to the media,” says Gilroy. “They [the media] play it up as a joke but it may affect the life’s work of some serious researcher. I just say we’ve got to be prepared to keep an open mind and investigate the evidence.
“You’ve got to be born for this sort of work,” Gilroy tells the Star-Times. “As an open-minded field researcher, I prefer to look for the evidence rather than dismiss something out of hand because a textbook says it’s extinct.”
He will go back to a site he says is home to “maybe half a dozen” small, scrub moa. And that’s not all. Gilroy says years ago, he found “tracks of bare human footprints, not too large … but I’ve often wondered who was getting around in the middle of nowhere, in the forest.”
Could it be the mysterious Moehau New Zealand’s version of the Big Foot mystery? Gilroy is keeping an open mind.
“It’s difficult for me, because I’ve got to differentiate between hoax sightings and believable ones … like some road workers, in the pouring rain, about 10 years ago, in the Eglinton Valley before the Milford Tunnel. They were in a shed, waiting for the rain to stop, and on the edge of the jungle were two birds emerging from the bush, about eight feet [2.4m] in height. And they were chewing leaves off trees … I get to know when someone’s telling the truth. You can tell embellishments.”
Gilroy says “you’ve got to be a bit eccentric in this business. If people think you’re a little bit crazy, they leave you alone so you can do your work.
“I want people to question, to draw their own conclusions. I think you can do no more greater service to man than make him think.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/238090/Hunting-mythical-creatures
It was a dark and stormy night.
OK, says Vicki Hyde, president of the New Zealand Skeptics, so it wasn’t stormy. But it was dark.
And there was something out there. Big, black, bulky. Just sitting there, watching.
“We stared. It stared back.”
She threw a shoe. It didn’t move. “Too big for an ordinary cat. Too still for a dog. Too quiet for a possum.”
A quick dash inside and the outside lights went on to reveal: an upended bucket.
“Did we feel silly? You bet.”
It can happen to anyone, says Hyde. Mistaken identification leads to incorrect assumptions and misperceptions, she writes in her new book Oddzone.
“It doesn’t mean you’re foolish or stupid or insane. Just human.”
And humans love a good mystery. Is there a yeti in the Himalayas? A Nessie in the Loch? A moose in Fiordland?
The hunt for a remnant population of moose liberated in New Zealand bush in the early 1900s is more than three decades old. So is the search for the South Island kokako, last reliably sighted in the 1950s and 60s. Student filmmakers recently went on the trail of a mysterious black cat in Canterbury. And now moa are back in the headlines, with news that next month, an Australian researcher will cross the ditch to find a colony of the giant birds in Te Urewera.
Who are these people who devote lifetimes to the hunt for the unknown?
Ken Tustin, 62, has amassed around 600 nights in the Fiordland bush trying to prove the existence of moose. The closest he has come is the collection of stray hairs, DNA-tested by scientists in Canada, who say his theory is almost certainly correct.
“I read articles saying I’m obsessed,” says Tustin. “I think [my story] tells kids, hey, in 2008, there are some great adventures still to be had. There are unsolved things and wonderful mysteries out there.”
He knows he’ll need photographs to silence the critics some people say the hairs prove nothing more than that the hunter has been hoaxed. Tustin, and his wife Marg, have had remote cameras in the bush for years.
“We’ve probably put about 10,000 camera nights into it.” So far, no moose “and about 2000 red deer”.
He says it’s a lovely personal challenge.
“Man thinks he controls the planet but, in effect, we’re being outfoxed by a very large, charismatic animal.”
For researchers like Tustin, and 60-year-old Rhys Buckingham, who is convinced the South Island kokako still exists, the common thread is begrudging admiration for their prey.
“How come you can’t find a thing the size of a horse?” Buckingham asks Tustin.
“How is it you can’t find a stupid squawking crow?” retorts Tustin.
What keeps the pair going?
“You’ve got to have some mystery in your life,” says Buckingham who is fitting in a phone interview around two three-day dance parties.
He says the South Island kokako is an incredible songbird and he believes he has collected numerous tape recordings of the bird that’s been dubbed “the grey ghost”. Naysayers reckon he’s simply recorded tui.
“I used to be more obsessed when I thought there was a chance to save it from extinction,” says Buckingham.
“I’m getting more disillusioned now, with what appears to be a calamity facing much more common birds, with stoat and rat plagues. I think I’m too late, I haven’t been successful… it would be so magnificent to save it from extinction.”
THE MOOSE and the kokako did, at least, once exist. But are there other, more mysterious creatures roaming New Zealand?
In 1966, the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand included a section headed “Animals, Mythical”. “Numerous tales of monsters, ogres, goblins and fairies, and weird `hairy men’ who devoured unwary travellers and waylaid hunting parties have long been part of Maori lore,” it said. “In all probability, such tales of water-dwelling monsters and other huge reptiles known as kumi were nothing more than distorted folk memories of the crocodile of the western Pacific or Asia.”
The entry gives slight credence to the waitoreke an aquatic, otter-like creature. Julius von Haast was believed to have acquired a portion of skin from the supposed animal. Charles Darwin wrote a letter, now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, querying its existence: “If I have not utterly exhausted your patience, I should be particularly obliged if you would inform me whether you think the evidence is really good that there formerly existed some animal (with hair?) like an otter or Beaver: I am much surprised at this. Could it not have been any water bird or reptile?”
Lemuel Lyes, archival researcher with Natural History New Zealand, says the existence (or otherwise) of the waitoreke is important even if it is now extinct. “If it could be proven to have existed once, then perhaps that would shatter some conceptions about New Zealand’s natural history.”
Here’s a theory: New Zealand is rumoured to have been visited by Tamil explorers. Te Papa Museum records the 1836 discovery of a ship’s bell, inscribed with ancient (at least 500 years old) Tamil script, being used by Whangarei Maori as a cooking pot. As it happens, says Lyes, Tamil sailors were known to use tame otters to catch fish. “Maybe, pre-Tasman days, some Tamil lost their otter?”
Lyes says it’s feasible a small number of the animals could exist undetected. “We’re supposed to have this huge population of stoats and weasels and things, yet how many New Zealanders have actually seen them? What’s to stop small pockets of otters living in some sanctuary down south?”
Cryptozoologists the name given to people who study creatures whose existence has not been substantiated say there is a very good chance of discovering unknown animals in New Zealand.
According to Hawke’s Bay-based researcher Tony Lucas, “We still have many areas in the South Island which remain relatively unexplored. These remote regions hold the best hope of harbouring a new, or previously thought extinct, species.”
This is the country, after all, that gave up the takahe half a century after it was thought to be extinct. The Chatham Islands taiko had not been seen for 111 years until it was dramatically rediscovered on New Year’s Day in 1978. And as recently as 2003, the New Zealand storm petrel, gone for 150 years, was sighted off the coast of Whitianga.
But how about those reports of a giant black cat in Canterbury? Last year, Mark Orton, a former film student who now works for Natural History New Zealand, trekked the region collecting eyewitness sightings for a documentary called Prints of Darkness. “I can only tell you what I saw,” Toni May tells the camera. “I can’t tell you what it is.”
If it was a feral cat, says another interviewee, “it was an Arnold Schwarzenegger of a cat”.
The rogue panther is an international cryptozoology mystery similar stories frequently circulate in United Kingdom and Australian media.
“The characters we featured in our film were not nutters,” says Orton. “They firmly believe in what they saw.”
His personal theory? “I think there’s possibly a rather large breed of feral cats. They’ve probably thrown up the black gene through years of interbreeding. Through their stealth and willingness to survive, the black cats have had the biggest success and they’re the ones thrown up more often than not.”
The filmmakers based themselves at Panther’s Rock Tavern, Mayfield. The pub got its name in retrospect and now hangs a mock big-cat road sign in the bar. Orton says locals laugh at the story of giant felines. “They’ve made fun of people in the community who have been open enough to admit the story. Some of the people we ended up putting in the film didn’t go to the mainstream media because they didn’t want the exposure.”
REX GILROY knows how they feel. The 64-year-old bills himself as the “father of Australian cryptozoology”. Next month, he and his wife Heather will travel to New Zealand to search for moa in Te Urewera where they claim to have previously found moa tracks and a nesting site.
“A lot of people are frightened to go to the media,” says Gilroy. “They [the media] play it up as a joke but it may affect the life’s work of some serious researcher. I just say we’ve got to be prepared to keep an open mind and investigate the evidence.
“You’ve got to be born for this sort of work,” Gilroy tells the Star-Times. “As an open-minded field researcher, I prefer to look for the evidence rather than dismiss something out of hand because a textbook says it’s extinct.”
He will go back to a site he says is home to “maybe half a dozen” small, scrub moa. And that’s not all. Gilroy says years ago, he found “tracks of bare human footprints, not too large … but I’ve often wondered who was getting around in the middle of nowhere, in the forest.”
Could it be the mysterious Moehau New Zealand’s version of the Big Foot mystery? Gilroy is keeping an open mind.
“It’s difficult for me, because I’ve got to differentiate between hoax sightings and believable ones … like some road workers, in the pouring rain, about 10 years ago, in the Eglinton Valley before the Milford Tunnel. They were in a shed, waiting for the rain to stop, and on the edge of the jungle were two birds emerging from the bush, about eight feet [2.4m] in height. And they were chewing leaves off trees … I get to know when someone’s telling the truth. You can tell embellishments.”
Gilroy says “you’ve got to be a bit eccentric in this business. If people think you’re a little bit crazy, they leave you alone so you can do your work.
“I want people to question, to draw their own conclusions. I think you can do no more greater service to man than make him think.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/238090/Hunting-mythical-creatures
“Gargoyle” attacks reported in Puerto Rico
A strange creature nicknamed “the Gargoyle” has reportedly attacked several animals and even people in Puerto Rico.
The creature has been described by some in a similar manner to the infamous Chupacabra while others believe it is something else entirely and that it resides in an abandoned sugar mill somewhere in Barrio Ensenada.
A strange creature with wings resembling those of a bat and which has been dubbed “the Gargoyle” has attacked several animals and even a human, according to reports issued by residents of Guánica.
Attacks by the “Gargoyle” resemble those of the mythic Chupacabras to a certain extent, given that it operates under cover of darkness and allegedly exsanguinates its victims.
Some people have identified it with the Chupacabras, yet others believe it is a differnt, elusive and sinister entity whose lair is in Barrio Ensenada, amid the ruins and tunnels of the Guanica Sugar Mill, where the skeletons of its victims can be found.
The Gargoyle’s exploits have gone on for many years, mostly in Guánica, but in Lajas and San Germán as well.
The creature has been seen by people who have opted to avoid making formal complaints to the Police, fearing they’ll be considered mentally disturbed or subjected to scorn. With the exception of one policeman and a schoolteacher who researchers strange phenomena, the other parties involved refused authorization to disclose their names.
A gargoyle is a mythic entity, a mixture of human and bird, represented by stone statues. These are placed on the cornises of cathedrals and other buildings.
A Human Is Attacked
“He was injured in his stomach, his [abdominal] fat could be seen,” noted a witness, describing the injuries suffered by a man on his belly and back, caused as if by “an animal’s claws.”
The witness soberly expalined that the wounded man lifted the t-shirt he put on after the attack, saying that a “large winged” animal took him by surprise in his back yard and attacked him.
The injured party, surnamed Valdo, also spoke to policemen patrolling the area where the attack took place, near Guánica Lagoon, in the mid-1990s.
Police officer Miguel Negrón states that he has not seen what is popularly referred to as the gargoyle, but two months ago, while patrolling the area with another officer near the old Guánica Sugar Mill, he heard the beating of powerful wings, as if something was propelling itself off the zinc roof of one of the mill’s cranes.
Agent Negrón indicated that some describe the gargoyle as a very large bird, emitting a sulfuric or rotten odor. It feeds on live animals like dogs, cats and horses, draining their blood and leaving them dry.
The creature goes forth at night or in the early morning hours, and for this reason there are few sightings. There are no photos or videos of the phenomenon, which attacks healthy animals, unlike a predator that seeks out sick or feeble animals.
http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2010/08/puerto-rico-gargoyle-vs-chupacabras.html
The creature has been described by some in a similar manner to the infamous Chupacabra while others believe it is something else entirely and that it resides in an abandoned sugar mill somewhere in Barrio Ensenada.
A strange creature with wings resembling those of a bat and which has been dubbed “the Gargoyle” has attacked several animals and even a human, according to reports issued by residents of Guánica.
Attacks by the “Gargoyle” resemble those of the mythic Chupacabras to a certain extent, given that it operates under cover of darkness and allegedly exsanguinates its victims.
Some people have identified it with the Chupacabras, yet others believe it is a differnt, elusive and sinister entity whose lair is in Barrio Ensenada, amid the ruins and tunnels of the Guanica Sugar Mill, where the skeletons of its victims can be found.
The Gargoyle’s exploits have gone on for many years, mostly in Guánica, but in Lajas and San Germán as well.
The creature has been seen by people who have opted to avoid making formal complaints to the Police, fearing they’ll be considered mentally disturbed or subjected to scorn. With the exception of one policeman and a schoolteacher who researchers strange phenomena, the other parties involved refused authorization to disclose their names.
A gargoyle is a mythic entity, a mixture of human and bird, represented by stone statues. These are placed on the cornises of cathedrals and other buildings.
A Human Is Attacked
“He was injured in his stomach, his [abdominal] fat could be seen,” noted a witness, describing the injuries suffered by a man on his belly and back, caused as if by “an animal’s claws.”
The witness soberly expalined that the wounded man lifted the t-shirt he put on after the attack, saying that a “large winged” animal took him by surprise in his back yard and attacked him.
The injured party, surnamed Valdo, also spoke to policemen patrolling the area where the attack took place, near Guánica Lagoon, in the mid-1990s.
Police officer Miguel Negrón states that he has not seen what is popularly referred to as the gargoyle, but two months ago, while patrolling the area with another officer near the old Guánica Sugar Mill, he heard the beating of powerful wings, as if something was propelling itself off the zinc roof of one of the mill’s cranes.
Agent Negrón indicated that some describe the gargoyle as a very large bird, emitting a sulfuric or rotten odor. It feeds on live animals like dogs, cats and horses, draining their blood and leaving them dry.
The creature goes forth at night or in the early morning hours, and for this reason there are few sightings. There are no photos or videos of the phenomenon, which attacks healthy animals, unlike a predator that seeks out sick or feeble animals.
http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2010/08/puerto-rico-gargoyle-vs-chupacabras.html
Cause of the big plague epidemic of Middle Ages identified
The latest tests conducted by anthropologists at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have proven that the bacteria Yersinia pestis was indeed the causative agent behind the “Black Death” that raged across Europe in the Middle Ages. The cause of the epidemic has always remained highly controversial and other pathogens were often named as possible causes, in particular for the northern European regions. Using DNA and protein analyses from skeletons of plague victims, an international team led by the scientists from Mainz has now conclusively shown that Yersinia pestis was responsible for the Black Death in the 14th century and the subsequent epidemics that continued to erupt throughout the European continent for the next 400 years. The tests conducted on genetic material from mass graves in five countries also identified at least two previously unknown types of Yersinia pestis that occurred as pathogens.
“Our findings indicate that the plague traveled to Europe over at least two channels, which then went their own individual ways,” explains Dr. Barbara Bramanti from the Institute of Anthropology of Mainz University. The works, published in the open access journal PLoS Pathogens, now provide the necessary basis for conducting a detailed historical reconstruction of how this illness spread.
For a number of years, Barbara Bramanti has been researching major epidemics that were rampant throughout Europe and their possible selective consequences as part of a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). For the recently published work, 76 human skeletons were examined from suspected mass graves for plague victims in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. While other infections such as leprosy can be easily identified long after death by the deformed bones, the problem faced in the search for plague victims lies in the fact that the illness can lead to death within just a few days and leaves no visible traces. With luck, DNA of the pathogen may still be present for many years in the dental pulp or traces of proteins in the bones. Even then it is difficult to detect, and may be distorted through possible contamination. The team led by Bramanti found their results by analyzing old genetic material, also known as ancient DNA (aDNA): Ten specimens from France, England, and the Netherlands showed a Yersinia pestis-specific gene. Because the samples from Parma, Italy and Augsburg, Germany gave no results, they were subjected to another method known as immunochromatography (similar to the method used in home pregnancy tests for example), this time with success.
Once the infection with Yersinia pestis had been conclusively proven, Stephanie Hänsch and Barbara Bramanti used an analysis of around 20 markers to test if one of the known bacteria types “orientalis” or “medievalis” was present. But neither of these two types was found. Instead, two unknown forms were identified, which are older and differ from the modern pathogens found in Africa, America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union regions. One of these two types, which are thought to have contributed significantly to the catastrophic course of the plague in the 14th century, most probably no longer exists today. The other appears to have similarities with types that were recently isolated in Asia.
In their reconstruction, Hänsch and Bramanti show an infection path that runs from the initial transportation of the pathogen from Asia to Marseille in November 1347, through western France to northern France and over to England. Because a different type of Yersinia pestis was found in Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands, the two scientists believe that the South of the Netherlands was not directly infected from England or France, but rather from the North. This would indicate another infection route, which ran from Norway via Friesland and down to the Netherlands. Further investigations are required to uncover the complete route of the epidemic. “The history of this pandemic,” stated Hänsch, “is much more complicated than we had previously thought.”
http://www.physorg.com/news206009200.html
“Our findings indicate that the plague traveled to Europe over at least two channels, which then went their own individual ways,” explains Dr. Barbara Bramanti from the Institute of Anthropology of Mainz University. The works, published in the open access journal PLoS Pathogens, now provide the necessary basis for conducting a detailed historical reconstruction of how this illness spread.
For a number of years, Barbara Bramanti has been researching major epidemics that were rampant throughout Europe and their possible selective consequences as part of a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). For the recently published work, 76 human skeletons were examined from suspected mass graves for plague victims in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. While other infections such as leprosy can be easily identified long after death by the deformed bones, the problem faced in the search for plague victims lies in the fact that the illness can lead to death within just a few days and leaves no visible traces. With luck, DNA of the pathogen may still be present for many years in the dental pulp or traces of proteins in the bones. Even then it is difficult to detect, and may be distorted through possible contamination. The team led by Bramanti found their results by analyzing old genetic material, also known as ancient DNA (aDNA): Ten specimens from France, England, and the Netherlands showed a Yersinia pestis-specific gene. Because the samples from Parma, Italy and Augsburg, Germany gave no results, they were subjected to another method known as immunochromatography (similar to the method used in home pregnancy tests for example), this time with success.
Once the infection with Yersinia pestis had been conclusively proven, Stephanie Hänsch and Barbara Bramanti used an analysis of around 20 markers to test if one of the known bacteria types “orientalis” or “medievalis” was present. But neither of these two types was found. Instead, two unknown forms were identified, which are older and differ from the modern pathogens found in Africa, America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union regions. One of these two types, which are thought to have contributed significantly to the catastrophic course of the plague in the 14th century, most probably no longer exists today. The other appears to have similarities with types that were recently isolated in Asia.
In their reconstruction, Hänsch and Bramanti show an infection path that runs from the initial transportation of the pathogen from Asia to Marseille in November 1347, through western France to northern France and over to England. Because a different type of Yersinia pestis was found in Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands, the two scientists believe that the South of the Netherlands was not directly infected from England or France, but rather from the North. This would indicate another infection route, which ran from Norway via Friesland and down to the Netherlands. Further investigations are required to uncover the complete route of the epidemic. “The history of this pandemic,” stated Hänsch, “is much more complicated than we had previously thought.”
http://www.physorg.com/news206009200.html
End of the Earth Postponed
It’s a good news/bad news situation for believers in the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. The good news is that the Mayan “Long Count” calendar may not end on Dec. 21, 2012 (and, by extension, the world may not end along with it). The bad news for prophecy believers? If the calendar doesn’t end in December 2012, no one knows when it actually will – or if it has already.
A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook “Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World” (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events. (The doomsday worries are based on the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, much as our year ends on Dec. 31.)
The Mayan calendar was converted to today’s Gregorian calendar using a calculation called the GMT constant, named for the last initials of three early Mayanist researchers. Much of the work emphasized dates recovered from colonial documents that were written in the Mayan language in the Latin alphabet, according to the chapter’s author, Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
Later, the GMT constant was bolstered by American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, who used data in the Dresden Codex Venus Table, a Mayan calendar and almanac that charts dates relative to the movements of Venus.
“He took the position that his work removed the last obstacle to fully accepting the GMT constant,” Aldana said in a statement. “Others took his work even further, suggesting that he had proven the GMT constant to be correct.”
But according to Aldana, Lounsbury’s evidence is far from irrefutable.
“If the Venus Table cannot be used to prove the FMT as Lounsbury suggests, its acceptance depends on the reliability of the corroborating data,” he said. That historical data, he said, is less reliable than the Table itself, causing the argument for the GMT constant to fall “like a stack of cards.”
Aldana doesn’t have any answers as to what the correct calendar conversion might be, preferring to focus on why the current interpretation may be wrong. Looks like end-of-the-world theorists may need to find another ancient calendar on which to pin their apocalyptic hopes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20101019/sc_livescience/endoftheearthpostponed
A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook “Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World” (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events. (The doomsday worries are based on the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, much as our year ends on Dec. 31.)
The Mayan calendar was converted to today’s Gregorian calendar using a calculation called the GMT constant, named for the last initials of three early Mayanist researchers. Much of the work emphasized dates recovered from colonial documents that were written in the Mayan language in the Latin alphabet, according to the chapter’s author, Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
Later, the GMT constant was bolstered by American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, who used data in the Dresden Codex Venus Table, a Mayan calendar and almanac that charts dates relative to the movements of Venus.
“He took the position that his work removed the last obstacle to fully accepting the GMT constant,” Aldana said in a statement. “Others took his work even further, suggesting that he had proven the GMT constant to be correct.”
But according to Aldana, Lounsbury’s evidence is far from irrefutable.
“If the Venus Table cannot be used to prove the FMT as Lounsbury suggests, its acceptance depends on the reliability of the corroborating data,” he said. That historical data, he said, is less reliable than the Table itself, causing the argument for the GMT constant to fall “like a stack of cards.”
Aldana doesn’t have any answers as to what the correct calendar conversion might be, preferring to focus on why the current interpretation may be wrong. Looks like end-of-the-world theorists may need to find another ancient calendar on which to pin their apocalyptic hopes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20101019/sc_livescience/endoftheearthpostponed
Mona Lisa's remains 'lie in Florence rubbish tip'
The remains of the Italian woman who was the model for Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa were dug up 30 years ago and now lie in a municipal rubbish tip, an Italian expert has claimed. Lisa Gherardini died in Florence in 1542 and was buried in the grounds of Sant’Orsola convent. Over the centuries the Franciscan convent was used as a tobacco factory and a university teaching facility but in the 1980s a redevelopment was launched to convert it into a barracks for Italy’s tax police, the Guardia di Finanza.
The developers had no knowledge that it was the final resting place of da Vinci’s famous model – that was only discovered in 2007 – and during work to build an underground car park, the convent’s foundations were excavated, along with the crumbling remains of graves and tombs.
The rubble was then dumped in a municipal landfill site on the outskirts of Florence.
Giuseppe Pallanti, an expert on da Vinci, who has spent 30 years studying the archives trying to establish Lisa Gherardini’s final resting place, is convinced her remains are interred in the dump, now a grassy mound nearly 100ft high.
“The tombs have all been lost,” he said. “Sadly, when the works were carried out in the 1980s no thought was given to the historical importance of the building and its artefacts.
“They just wanted to build new barracks for the Guardia di Finanza and the material they excavated was disposed of.”
Mr Pallanti, the author of “Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo’s Model”, added: “It is sad that the tomb of Lisa Gherardini has been destroyed without anyone realising it at the time”.
The prosaic end to the life of one of the best known figures in art history has only recently come to light through a fresh building project for the convent site.
Florence city council wants to turn the half-built police barracks, which has lain semi-derelict and bricked up for years, into a £23 million community arts centre.
Surveys of the site have shown that the site was excavated in the 1980s to such a depth that no tombs or other historical artefacts survived.
“What we found inside is a kind of devastation. All that remains of the old Sant’Orsola convent are the external walls and some fourteenth-century arches,” said an architect on the project, Luigi Ulivieri.
Gherardini is believed to have been born in Florence in 1479. At the age of 16 she became the second wife of a wealthy silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, with whom she had five children.
She moved into the convent after his death, staying there for the last four years of her life.
She is believed to have died in the convent at the age of 63 in 1542, according to a document unearthed three years ago by Mr Pallanti during his research.
He found a funeral record in a church archive known as a “Book of the Dead” which reads: “Lisa di Francesco del Giocondo, died July 15, 1542 – buried at Sant’Orsola”.
The portrait that came to be known as the Mona Lisa, which now hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, was completed by Leonardo in 1506 when she was about 24.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8056589/Mona-Lisas-remains-lie-in-Florence-rubbish-tip.html
The developers had no knowledge that it was the final resting place of da Vinci’s famous model – that was only discovered in 2007 – and during work to build an underground car park, the convent’s foundations were excavated, along with the crumbling remains of graves and tombs.
The rubble was then dumped in a municipal landfill site on the outskirts of Florence.
Giuseppe Pallanti, an expert on da Vinci, who has spent 30 years studying the archives trying to establish Lisa Gherardini’s final resting place, is convinced her remains are interred in the dump, now a grassy mound nearly 100ft high.
“The tombs have all been lost,” he said. “Sadly, when the works were carried out in the 1980s no thought was given to the historical importance of the building and its artefacts.
“They just wanted to build new barracks for the Guardia di Finanza and the material they excavated was disposed of.”
Mr Pallanti, the author of “Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo’s Model”, added: “It is sad that the tomb of Lisa Gherardini has been destroyed without anyone realising it at the time”.
The prosaic end to the life of one of the best known figures in art history has only recently come to light through a fresh building project for the convent site.
Florence city council wants to turn the half-built police barracks, which has lain semi-derelict and bricked up for years, into a £23 million community arts centre.
Surveys of the site have shown that the site was excavated in the 1980s to such a depth that no tombs or other historical artefacts survived.
“What we found inside is a kind of devastation. All that remains of the old Sant’Orsola convent are the external walls and some fourteenth-century arches,” said an architect on the project, Luigi Ulivieri.
Gherardini is believed to have been born in Florence in 1479. At the age of 16 she became the second wife of a wealthy silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, with whom she had five children.
She moved into the convent after his death, staying there for the last four years of her life.
She is believed to have died in the convent at the age of 63 in 1542, according to a document unearthed three years ago by Mr Pallanti during his research.
He found a funeral record in a church archive known as a “Book of the Dead” which reads: “Lisa di Francesco del Giocondo, died July 15, 1542 – buried at Sant’Orsola”.
The portrait that came to be known as the Mona Lisa, which now hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, was completed by Leonardo in 1506 when she was about 24.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8056589/Mona-Lisas-remains-lie-in-Florence-rubbish-tip.html
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