you can't believe everything you read...can you?
Cryptozoology
you can't believe everything you read...can you?
Cryptozoology is the study of unknown
or "hidden" life forms that might possibly exist on our planet. It is hard to
fathom that there could be creatures as yet to be discovered, however in this century
alone three excellent examples of discoveries come to mind: the Mountain Gorilla, the Okapi, and of course one of
the most famous, the Coelacanth, a fish only known from its fossils which are found in
rock 400 million years old. |
| In 1938 fishermen working in
the Indian Ocean off South Africa brought up a strange, metallic blue fish almost six feet
long. The fish possessed large, thick scales covering its body and had strong fleshy fins which it possibly used to propel itself along the ocean bottom. When the fish was brought to Professor J.L.B. Smith, an eminent marine biologist, for identification, he commented "My surprise would have been little greater if I had seen a dinosaur walking down the street." He identified the fish as a Coelacanth, a fish only known by fossil records. Several other specimens have been caught in the last decade and examination reveals that they differ little from their fossil forebears, with primitive hearts and brains only 1/15,000 of their body weight.
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Another discovery of this century is the Okapi (Okapia johnstoni) of
Africa which was discovered in the early 1900's. I remember writing a report in the fourth grade for open house at West Novato Elementary school about this critter based on that first book of weird animals my grandmother had given me. If memory serves me, I received a good grade for the report, but the teacher didn't leave it out for open house as she felt no one would believe it. I remember feeling confused and a little hurt that people might not believe the report. That was my first experience with some of the closed minds of the world. That feeling was to haunt me years later at a California University when I was taught the theory of Plate Tectonics behind closed doors by a graduate student who acted like we were practicing heresy during the Inquisition. At least she had enough huevos to proceed with a theory which hadn't been embraced by some of the older faculty. The rest is history. |
An open mind doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing.
| A decayed carcass accidentally netted by a Japanese trawler near New Zealand in 1977 has often been claimed to be a likely plesiosaur or "sea-monster" of the Loch Ness variety. Plesiosaurs were (are) a group of long-necked, predatory marine reptiles with four paddle-like limbs, believed to have been extinct for about 65 million years. Lab results from tissue samples taken from the carcass before it was discarded, strongly point to the specimen being a shark, and in all probability a basking shark. Basking sharks are known to decompose into "pseudoplesiosaur" forms, due to the different decomposition rates of the cartilage and skin. The results of scientific studies on the carcass data received less media attention than the reports of the original discovery of the carcass, allowing much confusion and speculation about this case to continue circulating. |
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There is also the discovery of the Mega Mouth Shark, and a new species of Ibex in Vietnam. These things still turn up, so should we laugh at the mention of long necked lake monsters, or the reports of hairy hominids? |
I don't.
| Once while on a backpack trip at the end of winter in
Desolation Wilderness in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains I followed tracks in the snow over a pass to another valley. I was wondering what other backpacker might be out there when I realized that the stride of the "other backpacker" was averaging 1.5 to 2 feet greater than mine. The tracks seemed definitely bipedal to me. It gave me a rather uneasy feeling when I realized this and I headed back the way I had come. I have seen pictures of bear tracks in snow after some melting action and this was not that, nor was it a deer bounding through the snow. It is easy for me now to wish that I had followed the tracks, but up there alone it was a completely different story. They could have possibly been from someone jogging with snowshoes, I have seen weirder stuff than that up there! |
Who knows. The point is, I ain't sayin' it is....but I ain't sayin' it ain't.
| If you take into account the age of the Earth, one can only begin to imagine the civilizations, and creatures who might have flourished and withered into the sands of time, or what small remnants might possibly remain hidden here and there in remote valleys, and in the depths of the sea. Who among us can say with absolute authority what has been, what is and what shall be? Not I, nor have I met anyone in the span of my time here who can. |
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Some say the carvings of this unidentified
animal, made by the ancient inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands some 1,500 years ago, are the earliest evidence that Loch Ness harbors a strange aquatic creature. I think that is stretching it quite a bit. |
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 These are frames from the Patterson-Gimlin film taken in 1967 in the Bluff Creek area. |
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| May 20th 2004 Agence France-Presse Ape-like beast seen in Chinese forest AN investigation has begun after sightings of a legendary "ape-like" beast in
the forests of central China, state press said today. The reserve is well known as a place where local legend has it that the half-man, half-ape creatures live. Dozens of sightings have been reported and China organised several high-profile searches for the unidentified animal through the 1980s and 1990s, but no hard evidence was found. Several years ago, China's state press said scientists had unearthed hundreds of fossilised teeth of giant apes in the area, with some speculating that Bigfoot could be a descendant of such primates. The latest sighting was described as a grayish "mythical ape-like animal", 1.65 metres tall with shoulder-length black hair. One of the witnesses, Shang Zhengmin, a local reporter on the way back to Songbai town from an interview in Muyu town with five local people, said they saw the beast when they took a left turn along a mountain road. He said the "ape-like" animal was moving fast on the road and by the time the vehicle finished the turn, the animal had disappeared. He said the passengers got out of the vehicle and found several 30 centimetre-long footprints and newly broken branches in the jungle near the road. They also claimed to have discovered a patch of "foul smelling urine-like liquid" on the road where the creature was seen. Xinhua said an investigation was underway. Theories abound about the mythical creature, with some scientists speculating that if
it exists, it may be an unknown primate, some arguing that it may be a bear or a monkey
and others suggesting it could be a missing evolutionary link between ape and human. |
Links
| 11/24/2009 this is all pree cool(: |
| 9/20/2003 Good BIGFOOT SITE-even one older report of a bigfoot in Santa Rosa, California (area I lived in(-:) http://gcbro.com/dbase1.htm |
| 4/12/2003 I don't know what to think about the loch ness monster I would like to see some up close picures |
www.byerly.org ™
01/1999 - 2010
last update: February 14, 2010
