Plug

Member of The Crypto Crew:
http://www.thecryptocrew.com/

Please Also Visit our Sister Blog, Frontiers of Anthropology:

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/

And the new group for trying out fictional projects (Includes Cryptofiction Projects):

http://cedar-and-willow.blogspot.com/

And Kyle Germann's Blog

http://www.demonhunterscompendium.blogspot.com/

And Jay's Blog, Bizarre Zoology

http://bizarrezoology.blogspot.com/

Monday 16 September 2013

Administrative Notice

The Blogs are going on hiatus this week as selections are being pulled with the idea of having them published in book form. Readers shall be posted when the procedure is done, but it should not take longer than a week.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

PS, this also means that any comments which might be added will not be answered for the duration. That is also understood within the terms of "This blog is under hiatus"

Sunday 15 September 2013

Wiwiliámecq’ and the New England Whale-Eater

                                (Photo credit, Gerry Biron: 2 of them are shown)
 
I found something interesting while surfing the net and unfortunately it involves another ambiguous use of "Monster" names
http://www.native-languages.org/weewillmekq.htm

Name: Weewillmekq
Tribal affiliation:
Maliseet, Passamaquoddy
Alternate spellings: Wiwilomeq, Wiwilmekw, Wiwilmeku, Weewilmekq, Wiwillmekq', Wiwilameq, Wiwilemekw, Wiwila'mecq, Wewillemuck, Wiwiliamecq', Wiwil'mekq, Wiwilmeku, Wee-Will-l'mick, Wee-wil-li-ah-mek, Wee-wil-'l-mekqu'
Pronunciation: wee-will-uh-meck-w
Type:
Lake monster, serpent
Related figures in other tribes: Axxea (Cheyenne), Apotamkin (Passamaquoddy) Axxea Although this monster features in several Wabanaki tales, little information about it has survived. It was certainly a water monster, but is variously described as resembling a giant snail, leech or slug, worm, or alligator. Some Wabanaki people believe Weewillmekq was actually the same creature as Kci Athusoss, but in other legends the two monsters were said to fight one another.
[Kci-Athussos is an underwater horned serpent, common to the legends of most Algonquian tribes. It is said to lurk in lakes and eat humans. Its Maliseet-Passamaquoddy name literally means Great Serpent.]

Weewillmekq Stories

The Magic of the Weewillmekq' * The Dance of Old Age:
    Stories about the magic healing powers of the horns of the Wiwilomeq.
*How a Woman Lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq':
    19th-century story about a boastful woman who was not as brave as she claimed to be.
*Jipijka'm and Weewillmekq':
    Tales about the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet horned serpents.
*Weewilmekq and Kitchi-at'Husis:
    Story of a fight between two Wabanaki water monsters.

Recommended Books of Related Native American Legends

Giants of the Dawnland:
    Good collection of Wabanaki legends told by a Penobscot Indian author.
On the Trail of Elder Brother:
    Another good book of traditional stories told by a Mi'kmaq author and illustrator.
Algonquian Spirit:
    Excellent anthology of stories, songs, and oral history from the Maliseet and other Algonquian tribes.
When the Chenoo Howls:
    Eerie collection of Native American ghost stories and monster tales.

In this case we do have a traditional Horned serpent which is alternatively said to be like a snail or a worm, the horns in this case meaning to be like snail's horns. The length of this one is given as approximately 30-50 feet and it is probably based on the standard Longneck (although mistaken impressions of other natural phenomena and other traditions got grafted onto it). The other component is the Alligator like form that was one of the originally different things that got grafted onto the tradition, and the Alligator like one is the one depicted in the carving at the top of this entry. It is twice the length of the other, 60-100 feet long according to other references.

George Eberhart's Mysterious Creatures describes the creature in this way:

Wiwiliámecq’

FRESHWATER MONSTER of northeastern North America.
Etymology: Abnaki-Penobscot and Malecite- Passamaquoddy (Algonquian), “snail.” Variant names: Weewilmekq, Wiwil’mékq, Wiwilmeku.
Physical description: Serpentine. Length, 30–40 feet. Soft horns. Behavior: Lurks under waterfalls. Habitat: Both freshwater and saltwater. Distribution: Boyden Lake, Maine; New Brunswick, Canada. Significant sighting: The eighteenth-century Penobscot shaman Old John Neptune (or, more probably, a similarly named ancestor) battled an enemy Micmac warrior who took the form of his familiar spirit, a huge water snake, on the east side of Boyden Lake. Sources: Charles Leland, Algonquin Legends of New England (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), pp. 324–329, 345–347; Albert S. Gatschet, “Water-Monsters of American Aborigines,” Journal of American Folklore 12 (1899): 255–260; Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans (Portland, Me.: Southworth- Anthoensen Press, 1945), pp. 39–48.

In other words the battle would have looked like THIS:

 
And both types of Sea Serpent are reported in the Massachussets Bay area. We have had a few mentions of the situation recently with this as an outstanding example:
 
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/08/more-sea-serpents-from-ivan-sandersons.html

 #72: South Pacific [position undisclosed (Actually NW of the Marquesas)], 1852. A whaling vessel [The Monongahela-DD] encountered something that captain and crew did not recognize as being any sort of whale. It was black, serpentine and moved with a snake-like motion. After some debate, they decided to chase the thing as they would a whale, harpooning it and killing it. It was 103' long. with a 6' diameter neck, widening to 8' at "shoulders". The body was about 16' at its broadest. The tail diminished to a point. The head was flat-topped and elongated. Its tongue was tipped with a "heart-shape". It had 94 teeth. Two spout holes, and four webbed paws. The back was black, the sides brown, and the belly yellow. They dismembered the thing as they would a Whale, but decided not to try to bring any of the bulk of it home. [I believe that some accident also occurred which flushed the evidence-ITS]. Oh well, such is Cryptozoology. [The Monongahela was later wrecked with a loss of all hands after the message was sent home by another ship in a parcel of letters. The authenticity of the letters was vouched for by the captain's surviving relatives and the letters together with the accompanying affidavits are now in the archives of the New Bedford Whaling museum. Several important points which needed to be specified!-DD]

#73: New Bedford, MA, 1964. An animal 50' long was seen just 50-100' off starboard. Water was "Flat and calm as a mill pond". The head was shaped alligator-ish, with lumps all along its midline, like camel humps. Head was also huge, about 20' long. The thing had a blow-hole, but was without a discernible neck. Body was dark but with white spotting. Its tail was like a lobster's and it flapped it upon the water. It paralleled the boat for some time and seemed "friendly". [Hey boys, come on in; the water's fine...]. [This one sighted by the Blue Sea was likely a whale but it is usually included together with the next one because both have "Alligator heads"-DD]

#74: New Bedford, MA, 1957. A creature with a very large body [of which 40' could be seen out of the water], was estimated at weighing over 35-40 tons. It had a seal-like shaped body but a long neck which held its head 26' out of the water. The head was "alligator-ish". It sported a mane of bristly hair.[The Noreen report, probably a "Whale-Eater" or the same as the Monongahela creature, and the midline crest is more ordinarily called a fin-DD]

The head and neck Periscope of the Whale-Eater type is commonly estimated to measure 25 feet, 10 feet of neck and 15 for the head, and this is also given in the case of the Monongehela creature. Hence it is not really the long neck that is so distinctive as it is the big head. Sightings of creatures with the head "the size of a rowboat" are uncommon but are on record off both New England and also Scandinavia, and sometimes in association with trains of the very large humps that could be due to pods of whales (hence the very largest "Super-otters" of absolutely fantastic dimensions) So once again we have our Whale-eater out chasing whales.

Saturday 14 September 2013

Manipogo=Moose

Sketch by Louis Bretecher, who saw the creature in the 50's when he was about 18. We interviewed him in August of 1999.



Manipogo Eye Witness

Interview by Russ McGlenn


http://tccsa.tc/adventure/manipogo_witness.html

Here is part of the transcript from our videotaped interview. If you'd like a copy of the video, e-mail Russ McGlenn and the cost is $15.00.

Russ McGlenn: Well, tell us a little bit about what you were doing here. I am just going to let you tell it. I have read one newspaper article, but you know how they do with newspapers and things. You said there was a sand spit here you were working on.

Louis Breteche: There was a sand bar just out that direction but it has all grown back into some weeds. This was probably in 1957. My Dad sent me with a half-ton truck to pick up some, well I was hauling more than one load, hauling gravel to put in front of the garage because there were a lot of rough bumps in there. So, I was hauling gravel. We had a hired man named Eddy Knicknack and we were down there shoveling away. We put in a half truck load because it was pretty heavy gravel and all of a sudden one of {us] happened to look towards the lake and we saw an object coming in the water coming about, oh, three four hundred yards and it looked like a bunch of ducks. But, they were all in line so we said, well gees that looks funny for ducks. It kept coming this way. We just quit shoveling right away and we started looking and kept on looking. It kept coming closer and it keep coming a little bit on the angle. I don't know if it could hear us or what, but then it got pretty close. As it got closer to us, within about 100 yards in the water, it lifted its head right out of the water about four feet and it had a head something, oh I would say just about like a horse. It was hard to explain it. The head was fairly long and it just lifted out and slapped the water again and did that a couple of times.

R: With its head, kind of slapped its head down.

L: Yes, he hit the water with his head, you know. But, I guess the bumps it must have been about 25 feet long and it had, I guess it was just like in the water, out the water. I tell you it was just like a, it wasn't flat, like it just kept like a snake, like to was...

R: Now, did it seem like it was going in and out this way or this way?

L: No, to me, if I remember right, it was going like this.

R: Up and down?

L. Yes, up and down.

R: You see, that is one characteristic of mammals. A mammal-like creature will tend to go this way where as if it is a reptile, it goes this way.

L: No, it wasn't going sideways. It was going up and down.

R: Now, you said its head was kind of like a horse. In other words it would be like a horse's head is long this way.

L: Well, it wasn't all that wide that I can recall, but it was fairly long. The head was more like a, it is hard to explain. The head on a horse is not that wide but longer going downwards. It had a head something like that.

R: Then, could you estimate, now you said about 25 feet long. The head, could you estimate this long or this long?

L: Oh, I would say the head must have been about, when it got out of the water a couple of times, it must have been at least 3 feet.

R: Now, was the head sticking straight out or kind of down again like a horse would have its head down?

L: Down, yes.

R: Did you see anything that looked like hair or sometimes they talk about a mane or a tuft of something behind its head?

L: No.

R: Anything look like ears or horns?

L: No, I can't say I seen anything that looked like ears.

R: Did it open it mouth at all so you could see teeth or anything like that?

L: It opened its mouth, but I didn't see teeth.

R: Maybe too far away?

L: Just too far away and I don't remember seeing teeth. It opened its mouth but not very wide, you know.

R: Now, as it was moving along, do you think you could, could you see its tail at all or rear end or something back there?

L: As it went along, I would say 20 feet was bigger and then the last 5 or 10 feet was smaller.

R: Thinner.

L: Yes, thinner.

R: Because in the newspaper article, it talked about it looked like the back of a tea kettle. Now are [you] saying like a tea kettle is fat and then the spout comes up? Is that what they maybe meant or maybe those weren't you words?

L: No, that wasn't my words. I don't recall seeing that.

R: Maybe that was another report, somebody else's.

L: To me it was just like it was pushing itself, like the tail, the back end, the rest of it was smaller but just it could have been up like a tea kettle but it was in the waves.

R: Could you see anything in the rear as well as a fin or a fluke like a whale? You know how a whale has flukes that spread out like this. Did you see anything like that?

L: No.

R: Anything in the front or sides that might look like fins or paddles or anything like that?

L: I can't recall that I saw anything like that, no.

R: Ok, how far then, Ok it [was] coming towards the shore then what finally happened?

L: Well, when it was coming toward us, then after that it started turning the other way again. I remember over there it starting going towards the southwest and then when it raised its head I would say it must have been from here to the end of that thin willow tree. So, that wasn't that far and then it kind of turned because we were looking and kind of making noise I guess. It kind of turned and started swimming.

R: Turned like broadside to you?

L: Yes, broadside. Like it was coming and just when of turned that way and it went that way. It didn't go any faster but we watched it for a little while and we were about that distance, about a quarter of a mile where we were with the truck, so we just left everything there and we took off with the truck and we came across here and we come to get these people that were living here.

R: Ok, that house was still there.

L: It was a house and not a cabin and we came to get them to see what we had seen and they did not want to come. They thought we were completely crazy. They said, you know, you are stupid, you a dumb, we are not going. So, ok that's fine, don't come.

R: Now as it was leaving it would be going almost south?

L: Well, it kind of turned and went like you know away from the shore and it just kept going south.

R: Do you know right out here does it drop off pretty fast in 10 or 15 feet?

L: Well, you don't have to go very far for the water to be deep. It you go 20-25 feet the water is deep.

R: Then, did you go home and tell your parents? How old were you then? You were in high school then?

L: Yes, that was in 1957 and I was born in 1941, so I would have been about 18.

R: Then you told your parents about it?

L: Oh, definitely I told my parents and they got all excited about it and from there it went to.....The man that was looking over Manitoba beach was Tom Locky and he, I don't think he is living anymore, but he was the main like the supervisor of all parks and I told him and he right away got ahold of the media, the CTDM in Daufin, the Winnipeg Free Press and in a day or two the Winnipeg Free Press was here and Winnipeg TV and it was on the radio and all that. Then, later on in life he seen it himself. Mr. Locky, yes, he seen it but he passed away.

R: Before this time, before you saw it had you heard stories about it or were you aware of it at all.

L: Yes, I was aware of it. There was Pete Adam and there was a Carl Adam and his sister, Lucille Adam, had seen it in Crane River. There was not too many people had seen it so far. There was maybe two, three. Then after that, when I seen it then after that there was a few more after that and that was it.

R: It seems like there have been a few sightings every year off and on for a few years.

L: There hasn't been for quite a few years now. I don't know, someplace.

R: Now in the newspaper it says they went over to Eagle Point and hiked back into Steep Rock Lake. Do you know why they decided that was the place to look for it?

L: Well, Eagle Point I think there is a cave there or something.

R: Yes, they said there was, well the newspaper article seemed to indicate that the cave was back at Steep Rock Lake, but you are thinking maybe the cave is right there a Eagle Point.

L: Well, one or the other because I remember them going to look out there and there is a cave and it is still there but I am not sure if it is Eagle Point or Steep Rock Bay.

R: Oh, maybe Steep Rock Bay, because it sounded like they walked up the creek to Steep Rock Lake, that bog back there.

L: There is a big stone ridge there. It is all stone in there and that is why they call it Steep Rock and it just drops right down.

R: At the bay though, so maybe we are still looking at the wrong place. Maybe Steep Rock Bay is where we should look. Maybe a cave along the edge of the cliff there.

L: My cousins know all about that. Clemon Bretecher lives just the other side of the lake there and he has got cattle. They use that Steep Rock for pasture.

R: The bay area or up to the lake too?

L: Yes, up to the lake. He would know more. He lives just the other side of the lake there.

R: He might even know where the cave is.

L: Oh yeh, I think he does, yep.

Trician McGlenn: Did you want to ask about the weather and the time of day?

R: What was the weather like?

L: It was nice and sunny.

R: Was it very windy or was the water fairly calm?

L: The water was, I would say, about like right now. Not calmed down but it wasn't the waves where you see the waves.

R: Was it morning or afternoon?

L: It was later on in the afternoon, I would say about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We had been hauling gravel most of the afternoon because I remember going to see these people and they were going to just have supper before too long. That is when they told us to get lost.

R: Now, the man who was working with you, how did he respond? He saw it too, right?

L: Oh yes. He was quite excited and then he was from Stonan Manitoba, which was about 40 miles north of here and he took his story home. He was an Indian.

R: Now he was an Indian. Do you know if the Indians had any stories or legends about this creature?

L: There were some that had some stories but then the one or two that I know off have passed away already too.

R: The newspaper said there was a LaFleur, an Indian man that took them over the Eagle Point. I can't remember his name. Fleury I think it was.

L: Marshtan Fleury. He passed away too. That is the one that I was thinking of that saw it a long time ago.

R: Did you have any other questions?

T: What time of the year?

R: Oh, do you know what month that was? Was it September? The newspaper article was dated September, but I didn't know if that…

T: It might have been before if he was working and not in school. It could have been in August because they came a couple weeks later.

L: Yes they came a couple weeks later, well a couple days later. They came as soon as Tom Locke told them and really Tom Locke, he was a nice guy but he told them about it and he teased me because I was fairly young at that time, about 18 or 19 and every time he would see me he would like of laugh at me about the Monapogo and I kind of laughed at him because about 4 or 5 years later he was fishing with his wife and some friends and they spotted it.

R: Did you write down Tom Locke?

T: He passed away, right?

L: Yah, I don't know if Mrs. Locke is even living anymore, but he passed away. He was in ......ok River.

R: Did you talk to him after he saw it then and what did he say?

L: Well, we had kind of the same story. They were in a boat and they were fishing and they seen it out at Crane River also. There is a little bay in Crane River there and people fish off the bridge, but I remember him saying that he was out in the bay and they were fishing and all of a sudden they noticed this thing coming towards them. Then the same thing, it kind of got out of the water a little bit and then it took off.

R: Did you have any theories about, maybe it is just curious do you think and maybe he was attracted by the noise of you working or them fishing or something.

L: I don't know what made it come this way, really. I don't know if it could have been the noise. I doubt it very much. I think it was just the way it was traveling and then when it heard us I think that is when it turned away from us.

Mary: It didn't make any noise that you heard, huh?

L: No it didn't make no noise. It just lifted itself out of the water, you know, maybe I would say it was a good 10 feet out of the water, yeh, 10 feet of the whole thing. We could see it real good. I can still remember just like the day that I seen it.

R: He lifted his head over 10 feet up?

L: Yeh, the body and the head and then he just let it go down.

R: He kind of slapped the water when it came down?

L: Well, yeh, with the weight it kind of slapped the water. I knew it was a big reptile or something pretty huge because when it was going sideways. We couldn't see it this way. We thought it was ducks coming. Little ducks sometimes follow each other in a row, but they kind of spread out and make a V. When it was straight and raised itself out of the water, I could see that it wasn't duck anymore because it was going like this. That is when I could tell the length of it because it had about 6 lumps in there, at least 6 humps.

T: What about Bird Island?

L: Oh, Bergs Island?

R: Well, there is an island up here, a pure white island with all the birds on it, is that called Bergs Island? Now, as we drove up there, we were over at Eagle Point.

L: You went to Eagle Point already?

R: Yes, today and we hiked clear back to Steep Rock Lake thinking that is where they hiked and we followed the creek up there but we could not find any cave. So, maybe it is Steep Rock Bay that is where we should be looking.
*******

In a recent posting by Jay Cooney about a horse-headed "Sea Serpent" reported recently in Maine, I mentioned that the swoimming moose series of reports featured a horselike head of about a yard long across the board- that the head was an unvarying feature no matter how long the rst of the creature was supposed to be (because the "Body" is only the illusion caused by waves in the wake anyway). Jay was skeptical of this but the 3 foot long horselike head alone I would consider as diagnostic of a swimming moose report. That is what Louis Breteche reported about Manipogo, except that at one point the creature reared up ten feet or so and plunged back down. A moose is large enough that it actually is capable of rearing up ten feet and still keep its rear quarters in the water. In cases in Maine, Nova Scotia and in the case of Manipogo we have a solid minimum length statement given  as 12 feet long. That is the approximate length of a full-grown moose. See the dimensions of the lifesized statue advertised below:

 
--Which also gives you the impression of how big the moose could rear up in the water if it wanted to. It is easy to distinguish the swimming moose reports from the Longnecks because the head is larger (half again on average), the neck is shorter and thicker (Head and neck less than half the length and probably twice as thick) and there is often some giveaway other feature such as the hairy coat, ears or the bell/beard. in the case of Louis Breteche's report, he said he did not see ears but his sketch indicates something that looks like ears in the right location to actually be ears. And the position of the eyes and shape of the nostrils are also dead giveaways. The allegation that the head looks like a horse's or a camel's is often enough. The swimming moose can also sometimes be heard to give a peculiar loud bleating cry.

To look at other sites that mention Manipogo, some viewed with skepticism, check these:

http://www.theshadowlands.net/serpent2.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/chaney/627/manipogo.htm
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf053/sf053b10.htm
http://www.unmuseum.org/nlake.htm
http://paranormal.about.com/cs/sealakemonsters/index_2.htm
http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/lakemonsters.htm
http://www.strangemag.com/ogopogo.html
http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/nlake.htm





Summer 2000 Reports
[Reports by teams that did interviews of local folks and Native Americans (First Nation peoples) We plan to follow up on these leads next summer.]
Report to Mr. Russ Mc Glenn on interview with Abigail Moar at Band office on reservation at Crane River, Manitoba Canada conducted by Ron Green, Bill Olmsted and Luella Jensen and prepared by Ronald M. Green 9/18/00.
Her great grandfather saw the “dragon with a horse head.” He saw him at least 50 years ago. Crane River is 40 feet across, pretty deep in some spots. Is Crane River the same as “Lake Manitoba River” which runs through the town of Crane River?—Probably so. [Need to follow up on this location]
Abigail's mother in law was there and saw it half on the shore half in the water. I believe this was the same sighting as what her great grandfather had. A teacher was with her and saw it too and then fainted. said Luella: “You don't faint if you see a log” Abigail said the teacher said it had a horse's head. The teacher who saw it is named Genevieve. She was out of town the week we interviewed Abigail.
Abigail mentioned that nearby on Louis's Island there were caves there that had pictures (drawings) of three (?) men and a horse. It didn't seem to myself and Bill Olmsted that these were related to what we were looking for because there was no mention of it being serpent-like drawing, but of just a horse. Someone there at the office could guide us to that cave—but again that man was gone for the weekend. [This may be a drawing of the creature as many eyewitnesses say the head of the creature looks like a horse. We hope to send a team to explore this island next summer]
Other information:
In calling back to the Waterhen Inn, the lady who was the owner's wife told me that she knows of someone who saw something akin to the creature (or the same) we are looking for just three years ago. The person to contact about this is Mr. Camille Catcheway who lives at Water Hen First Nation on the Skownan Reservation. This sighting was on Water Hen Lake, 20 miles north of where we were staying.

http://tccsa.tc/adventure/manipogo.html

Although the outline as given at top is more of a standard "Lake Monster" impression, the prominent single shoulder hump with the following slope of the back is also a dead giveaway for a swimming moose report.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manipogo

Manipogo

 is the name given to the lake monster reported to live in Lake Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada. Sightings of this serpent-like sea monster have been going on since roughly 1908. The creature was dubbed Manipogo in 1957, the name echoing British Columbia's Ogopogo. There is also a Lake Winnipegosis sea monster called Winnepogo, thought possibly to be the same creature as the lakes are connected. Some[who?] have speculated that the monster sightings may be attributed to sightings of an unusually large lake sturgeon, or a relict population of prehistoric plesiosaurs. Although many experts[who?] believe the correct name is Winnipego, as confirmed by local residents.[clarification needed]
The monster is thought to be anywhere from 12 feet to 50 feet long. It is described as being "A long muddy-brown body with humps that show above the water, and a sheep-like head."[1]
There is a provincial park on the west shore of Lake Manitoba named Manipogo Provincial Park.
St Laurent, a community on the south east shores of Lake Manitoba, holds a Manipogo festival the first week of March every year.
Since the 1800s, people have claimed to have seen the sea monster Manipogo.[2]
The local native population has legends of serpent-like creatures in Lake Manitoba going back hundreds of years.
A group of seventeen witnesses, all reportedly strangers to one another, claimed to have spotted three Manipogos swimming together.[3]
In the early 1960s, Professor James A. McLeod of Manitoba University investigated the creature by trying to locate its remains. If there is a breeding population in the lake, they should be leaving carcasses and bones when they die. McLeod found none.

Alleged sightings

  • 1935: Timber inspector C. F. Ross and a friend saw the creature. On its head was a single horn and its head was small and flat. To them it looked very much like a dinosaur.
  • 1948: C. P. Alric reported that some sort of creature rose six feet out of the lake and gave a "prehistoric type of dinosaur cry".
  • 1957: Louis Belcher and Eddie Nipanik saw a giant serpent-like creature in the lake.
  • 1962: Two fishermen, Richard Vincent and John Konefell, saw a large creature like a serpent or giant snake 60 yards away from their boat. (Storm, 38)
  • 1960s: Around the 1960s, Mr. and Mrs. Stople saw a “reptile-like beast surfacing about thirty feet from their boat
  • 1989: Sean Smith and family visiting from Minneapolis on a camping trip stayed at Shallow point off highway #6 on Lake Manitoba and saw what he described as 'many humps" in the lake about 80 feet off shore.
  • 1997: Several reports by cross country campers from Quebec staying at Lundar Beach campground saw what appeared to be a large reptile head rise and fall in the water several hundred feet off shore. Swimmers were evacuated from the water; the head only appeared one time. It was dismissed as a floating log, but no log was seen afterwards.
  • 2004: Commercial fisherman Keith Haden, originally from Newfoundland, reported several of his fishing nets on Lake Manitoba near the narrows one day to be torn up by what seemed like an ocean shark or killer whale. The fish that were in the nets were not nibbled on, but actually torn in half, by what seemed like huge bites.[Possible giant otter?-DD]
  • 2009: Several residents at Twin Lakes Beach reported seeing several humps a few hundred yards from their lake-front cottages. No photos were taken.
  • 2011: Many sightings of several humps emerging and then submerging seen offshore at locations like Marshy Point, Scotch Bay, and Laurentia Beach by security personal patrolling flooded cottage and home areas.
  • 2012: Aug. 9 @ 9pm just off shore of Outlet at Twin Beach Rd. Surfaced twice, showing a scaled / sawtooth jagged back of that of a giant Sturgeon.

Television

Manipogo was featured on an episode of the television documentary series Northern Mysteries

http://www.bcscc.ca/manipogo.htm
 Manipogo (Lake Manitoba)

The Manitoba lake systems and communities.Copyright Hammersmith Books.In 1997 a hoax was perpetrated claiming that Manipogo the monster of the Manitoba lake system had been captured and killed by a local farmer who saw the creature out of water and promptly shot it. The farmer was alleged to have hidden the creature in barn near the sandy point native reservation and was offering it for sale at a price of $200,000.
The Royal Canadian Mounted police Detachment at the resevation were supposed to have seen the creature, but the story began to unravel when the RCMP officer-in-charge denied that any such creature had been apprehended. That did not stop major Canadian newspapers and news services from running the story as if it were acknowledged fact, but thanks to the efforts of contacts of noted Fortean author Loren Coleman and the Manitoba UFO Research Association it was discovered that the story was utterly false and had been the work of a practical joker.
While the "Manipogo" flap was quite fictional, there remains the fact that animals of unclassified type inhabit lakes Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, Manitoba, Dauphin, Cedar and Dirty. Since the early 1900s Manipogo has made sporadic appearances in the lakes which are all quite shallow and interlinked through amzae of rivers and streams. It is no surprise that so many lakes should boast this snakey creature as it is so very easy to swim through this natural waterway.
Variously described as black or muddy brown in colour, Manipogo is an elongated creature with its body frequently showing as a series of arches above the surface. Most witnesses have described being able to see under the arches meaning that the back sections rise well out of the water. Measuring from 12 to over 50 feet in length, Manipogos are reluctant to show their heads, but when they have been seen they have always been regarded by thos epresent to be rather like a snake or sheep in shape.
In 1962 the animal was apparently photographed by two recreational fishermen who spotted the cryptid crossing the lake in front of their boat (above). Richard Vincent, operations manager for TV station CKND and an American television commentator by the name of John Konefell first sighted something in the water 300 yards infront of their boat. They believed it to be Manipogo and were fortunate enough to have a camera handy, so they availed themselves of the opportunity an promptly snapped a photo of the creature afterthey had moved closer to it. The original uncropped photograph includes the gunwhale of the boat which can be used for comparison purposes when attempting to determine the size of the object and it can be determined that the object is about two feet out of the water. At least 12 feet of the creature's length was visible above the surface and it appeared to be approximately 12 inches in diameter. The men claimed to have watched the creature for more than 5 minutes before it vanished. Their ten horsepower boat was unable to keep up with the speedy creature so they were always behind the animal.
In 1974 Vincent was asked about his experience with the strange thing in his photo, but cryptically he refused to say that he had seen Manipogo, but preferred to say that he witnessed and photographed "something" in the lake. A number of investigators have posited that the object bears a strong resemblance to nothing [more unusual than] a log with a bent branch arching over. This is a perfectly plausible explanation and is more likely than Manipogo. There is also the absence of a discernible wake in the photo which must have been created by an animal which was allegedly swimming faster than a 10 HP motorboat. Interesting as the Vincent/Konefell may be it is not acceptable evidence of a creature living in the Manitoba Lakes.
Veteran researcher and writer, Gary Mangiacopra has theorised that Manipogo may well be a left over population of zeuglodons (basilosaurus) which were thought to have died out tens of millions of years ago. This theory is also held by Dr. Roy Mackal of Loch Ness fame, but a problem arises with Mangiacopra and Mackal's identification. The Manitoba lakes are usually frozen in winter and as zeuglodons were air breathers, they would, of necessity be forced to migrate via the Nelson River to Hudson's Bay where large sections remain free of ice. Even if they were able to reach the Nelson River they would have to overcome numerous manmade and natural obstructions which would prevent them from even arriving at the starting point of their voyage to Hudson's Bay.
Manipogo has been seen frequently in one particular location since the beginning of summer, 1999. As investigations of a spate of sightings is presently underway, we are unable to divulge the location until our investigators have completed their research and return with their pertinent findings.
The content of this page are the respective copyright of Orbis Books,
Richard Vincent and John Kirk, 1987, 1962, 1996.

This is probably a twisted piece of driftwood
it is not swimming faster than the water flow and hence it is not making any wake.
 

Water Horse=Moose

ADDITIONAL INFO FROM EBERHART, MYSTERIOUS CREATURES:
[NB especially reports with the recurring features of head about three feet long, total length about 12-15 feet long, dark brown colour, single hump on shoulders, and mane or beard]

Maner
A category of Sea Monsteridentified by Gary Mangiacopra.
Physical description: Serpentine or eel-like. Length, 15–50 feet.
 Horselike or snakelike flat head, 3 feet long, tapering down to the muzzle. Enormous eyes. Slender neck, 10 feet long or more. A mane or beard has been reported. Round tail, either fanlike or tapering to a point.
Behavior: Swims rapidly by squirming. Churns up the water. Spouts. Curious and cautious; sometimes playful. Has been reported to circle a boat, jump completely out of the water, and land on its stomach.[More likely try to board the boat by climbing over the side]
Distribution: North Atlantic Ocean along the coast of the United States. ... Present status: Similar to Bernard Heuvelmans’s Merhorse. Possible explanation: An unknown mammal, perhaps related to the Seals (Suborder Pinnipedia). Sources: “The Sea Serpent,” St. Louis Globe- Democrat, September 27, 1888, p. 6; “Sea Serpent Hits Hell Gate Pilot,” New York Herald, August 11, 1902, p. 12; Gary S. Mangiacopra, “The Great Unknowns of the 19th Century,” Of Sea and Shore 8, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 175–178. [This clearly conflates the mooselike Northern Water Horse reports with the more conventional SeaSerpent reports seen in other areas further South. Eberhart gives as examples the more typical Sea-serpent reports from further South and I deleted them here]

Manipogo
Freshwater Monster of Manitoba, Canada. Etymology: Named by Tom Locke in 1960, in imitation of Ogopogo. Variant name: Manny. Physical description: Serpentine. Length, 10–40 feet [Commonly 15-20]. Brownish-black upper body. At least one hump. Flat, diamond-shaped [or horselike] head. Behavior: Bellows like a train whistle. Distribution: Lake Manitoba, Manitoba. The animal’s name is also used as a synonym for Winnipogo in other Manitoban lakes.
Significant sightings: Louis Betecher and Eddie Nipanik saw a serpentine animal in the lake in 1957. On August 10, 1960, government land inspector Tom Locke and sixteen other witnesses saw three creatures swimming offshore near Manipogo Beach. They looked like huge, darkbrown snakes. Many other sightings were reported that summer. Zoologist James A.McLeod led an expedition to Lake Manitoba later in the year and interviewed many residents.
Richard Vincent and John Konefall saw a “large black snake or eel” off Meadow Portage on August 12, 1962. Vincent took three photos, one of which shows an elongated, snakelike object with a hump. Unfortunately, some inconsistencies have undermined the credibility of this case.
In the summer of 1987, Allen McLean and his family were boating in Portage Bay when they saw a large, black object swimming toward them. Sources: Winnipeg Free Press, August 5, 1961, and August 15, 1962; Chris Rutkowski, Unnatural History: True Manitoba Mysteries (Winnipeg, Canada: Chameleon, 1993), pp. 137–147.
Winnipogo
FRESHWATER MONSTER of Manitoba, Canada. Etymology: In imitation of OGOPOGO. Physical description: Diameter, 2 feet 6 inches. Small, flat [or Horselike] head. Head and neck 4-5 feet long.
Distribution: Lake Winnipegosis and Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba. Significant sightings: Oscar Frederickson was shooting ducks at Fuller Bay, Lake Winnipegosis, in April 1918 when something large pushed up a big chunk of ice from below in about 3 feet of water. C. F. Ross and Tom Spence saw a dinosaurlike animal with a single horn in the back of its head at the north end of Lake Winnipegosis in 1935. A serpentine animal 15 feet long was rammed by a boat in July 1983 in Lake Winnipegosis off Pelican Rapids. A black creature was hit by a boat in July 1984 in Traverse Bay on Lake Winnipeg. Sources: Winnipeg Free Press, August 5, 1961, and August 15, 1962; Dorothy Eber, “The Scientific Search for a Prehistoric Monster,” Macleans 74 (August 12, 1961): 1; Waldemar Lehn, “Atmospheric Refraction and Lake Monsters,” Science 205 (July 13, 1979): 183; Chris Rutkowski, Unnatural History: True Manitoba Mysteries (Winnipeg, Man., Canada: Chameleon, 1993), pp. 137–147. [A deerlike animal or moose could be sheding antlers and thus only have one of them when sighted]

Horse’s Head
Freshwater Monsterof Québec, Canada. Variant name: Misiganebic [Horned Serpent]. Physical description: Length, 6–30 feet [Average is 12-18 feet]. Head is like a horse’s. Behavior: Swims swiftly. Travels on land between lakes. Tourists used to put cartons of cream in the water for the monster to drink.[Leaves cloven-hoofed footprints on land, said to be reversed]
Distribution: Baskatong Lake, Lac Bitobi, Lac Blue Sea, Lac-des-Cèdres, Lac Creux, Lac Désert, Gatineau River, Lac Pocknock, and Lac Trente-et-un-Milles, all in Québec. Significant sighting: Around 1910, Olivier Garneau was fishing in Lac Blue Sea when he saw a 10-foot animal with a horse’s head rise up out of the water. Source: Michel Meurger and Claude Gagnon, Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross- Cultural Analysis (London: Fortean Tomes, 1988), pp. 104–110.
Cheval Marin
Sea Monster of the coastal waters of Canada and West Africa.
Etymology: French, “sea horse.”
Physical description: Horselike head. Clawed (cloven hooved) forearms. Fishlike, scaly tail(Wake).
Size: 12-15 feet long
Behavior: Neighs like a horse. Distribution: Île Brion and Rivière-St.-Jean, Québec, Canada; West Africa.
Possible explanations: (1) Explorer Jacques Cartier saw two Walruses (Odobenus rosmarus)(?) on the Île Brion in 1534 and fish-shaped, horselike animals in a river that may have been the modern Rivière-St.-Jean off the St. Lawrence. The French naturalist Louis Nicolas conflated the two stories and mixed in Native American legends of the Horse’s Head to describe a composite animal.
(2) Early reports from French Africa may have confused the Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) and the West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis).[Need to drop this out]
(3) A Sea Monster resembling Heuvelmans’s Merhorse.
Sources: Marc Lescarbot, History of New France [1609], trans. Henry Percival Biggar (Toronto, Canada: Champlain Society, 1907–1914), vol. 7, p. 73; Gabriel Sagard, Le grand voyage du pays des Hurons [1632], ed. Marcel Trudel (Montreal, Canada: Hurtubise HMH, 1976); Girolamo Merolla, A Voyage to Congo [1682], in Awnsham Churchill, ed., A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London: A. and J. Churchill, 1704), vol. 1, pp. 651–756; Henry Percival Biggar, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier (Ottawa: F. A. Acland, 1924); Michel Meurger and Claude Gagnon, Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (London: Fortean Tomes, 1988), pp. 211–216.

[Eich Uisige/Water Horse tradition also noted in Newfoundland and other parts of Eastern Canada]

Gargoyle Face at Loch Ness

 

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster

Robert Rines's studies (1972, 1975...)

In the early 1970s, a group of people led by Robert H. Rines obtained some underwater photographs. Two were rather vague images, perhaps of a rhomboid flipper (though others have dismissed the image as air bubbles or a fish fin). The alleged flipper was photographed in different positions, indicating movement.[69] On the basis of these photographs, British naturalist Peter Scott announced in 1975 that the scientific name of the monster would henceforth be Nessiteras rhombopteryx (Greek for "The Ness monster with diamond-shaped fin").[70] Scott intended that this would enable Nessie to be added to a British register of officially protected wildlife. Scottish politician Nicholas Fairbairn pointed out that the name was an anagram for "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S".[71][72]
[This anagram actually is not exact and has a leftover extra letter, thus invalidating the claim]

The underwater photos were reportedly obtained by painstakingly examining the loch depths with sonar for unusual underwater activity. Rines knew the water was murky and filled with floating wood and peat, so he took precautions to avoid it. A submersible camera with an affixed, high-powered flood light was deployed to record images below the surface. If he detected anything on the sonar, he would turn the lights on and take some pictures. Several of the photographs, despite their obviously murky quality, did indeed seem to show an animal resembling a plesiosaur in various positions and lightings. One photograph appeared to show the head, neck and upper torso of a plesiosaur-like animal.[73] After two distinct sonar contacts were made, the strobe light camera photographed two large lumps in the water, suggesting there to be two large animals living in the loch. Another photo seemed to depict a horned "gargoyle head", consistent to that of several sightings of the monster.[74] Sceptics point out that several years later, a log was filmed underwater which bore a striking resemblance to the gargoyle head...

 
I thought this suggestion had some potential value and I looked up the images of the waterlogged stump that had been photographed in the same area on the second on the second occasion. Two alternative prints of the object in question are directly below.

 
On comparing this object to the "Gargoyle head" photo, several points of comparison do present themselves. In both cases the "mouth" is a sort of a bite that has been cut out of the one side of the stump, and there are both longer sticklike protrusions above this "Bite" and smaller warty lumps below it which are obvious features of the so-called gargoyle face and are readily discernible on the stump in question. The object is not in the same orientation in both images but the similar features are clearly there.
 
 
 On the other hand the Plesiosaurian head and neck photo does not show anything like the same kind of a head, which was one of the dead giveaways that some kind of a mistake had been made. There is no good reason to call the Plesiosaurian head+ neck photo anything but what is is supposed to be.
 

Scott Mardis has presented evidence on this blog in which he tried to justify the gargoyle head along with the rest of the 1975 Rines /AAAS underwater photos but in my opinion he was wrong to do so. As far as I am concerned it is clearly the same stump. However his evidence concerning the diamond-shaped flipper and the processing necessary to make it more visible sounds reasonable. He had also lined up two Plesiosaur skeletons to be in the same positions as the sonar-con "Two Bodies" photo and that also look reasonable to me. The criticisms of both photos sounds overly harsh once Scott has accounted for the seeming discrepancies. Although I cannot endorse the "Gargoyle Head" photo. the other underwater photos look like strong evidence for an unknown animal in the loch.
 
 

Thursday 12 September 2013

Tracing Monsters, Cryptozoology 1987

From CRYPTOZOOLOGY Magazine from the Editor. Submitted by Scott Mardis.




Richard Smith on Surgeon's Photo Hoax Claim

Material Submitted by Scott Mardis








I saw this at the "Lake Monsters" Facebook group and it motivated me to post scott Mardis' material. I left the comment " YES THIS PHOTO ISA FAKE. And it is a stupid attempt to back up the false claims made by Christian Spurling, who truly was a hoaxer when he claimed to have been involved in taking "the Surgeon's Photo" at Loch Ness. That whole affair was nothing more than a smear campaign against a specific other individual [Kenneth Wilson, otherwise credited with taking the photo] and slanderously alleges the Daily Mail's complicity in faking the photo. I'm surprised there was not legal action taken over that"

Eastern Bigfoot, New Demonstrations


A facebook Friend of mine sent me photos of a variety of casts he hasd made in the Midwestern part of the US (mostly in Ohio I think. I selected two that I thought were exceptionally representative of the "Ape" (Swamp Ape/Wood Ape) and more humanlike (Actually Neanderthaloid) tracks out of the dozen or more examples that were on display. Both kinds are called Skunk Apes in Florida and Brush Apes (etc) in Texas. I also added drawings of the equivalent foot bottoms for an actual ape and a human being, from a textbook illustration that went on display on this blog a while back. I hoped to get a better impression of the "Long and thin" types of ape footprint which more closely resembles an orangutan's foot.

Here is a selection of the Unknown apes from around the Pacific rim All of them seem to be just variations on the orangutan and derived from the ground-dwelling "Fossil Pongo" that inhabited China about the same time as Gigantopithecus. The fate of their classification in general depends on decisions regarding some of the samples that we already have. If the Yeti DNA samples, Orang Pendek hair samples, Yeren samples and even the "Fossil Pongo" are all classified in the same species as the commoner orangutans, we will not have a Cryptozoological situation, we will only have an expanded range for a known species. At present tis is a quandary.
             .
 
Neanderthal as Wildman from "Yowie Hunter"
 Our other problem is that the "Hairy Cavemen" such as the Neanderthals turn out have interbred with us and so they were the same species as the rest of us. Furthermore at some point in the development of our species, the hairless tropical mutant form at some point broke out into the territory of the more cold-adapted Northern forms of our species and predominated over them. The situation follows this  mock-up:
  And presumably this is the end result of the "out of Africa"movement.

But that means that the hairy wildmen that persist in pockets of wilderness worldwide (and which includes both pygmy, normal-sized, and giant variations) Is only another kind of people. That was my conclusion made decades ago and Im sticking to it. The problem is that these "Hairy Primitives" (as Ivan Sanderson called them) are also not Cryptozoological subjects they are a known species
(Below is what could be called a cosplay for "Old Yellow-top, a Canadian example of the more manlike Eastern Bigfoot.)

The Tote-Up

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2010/08/dale-drinnon-mystery-primates-tote-up.html
Coleman et al, in The Field Guide to Bigfoot... also gives nine categories, thus:
1. Neo-Giants, (=)
2.* True Giants (Gigantopithecus),


3.x  Marked Hominid, (=)
4.x  Neandertaloid, (=)
5.x  Erectus Hominid, (=)
6.x Proto-pygmy,

7.x*  Unknown Pongid,
8.x * Giant Monkey,
9. Merbeing,

-out of which I discount as separate categories the true giants, marked hominids, Neandertaloids, erectus hominids and proto-pygmys, and the last four of these on the grounds that they are not only probably variants of one species, but that species is most likely not separable from Homo sapiens. I retain the categories neo-giants, unknown pongid, giant monkeys and allow the mer-beings but also keep that category as a questionable status. [There is a good chance that many if not most sightings in the Unknown Pongid and Giant Monkey categories are of animals in known species and the categories are also invalid for that reason]

In this case, the categories unknown pongid, giant monkey and merfolk are NOT unified categories representing a single cryptid as a single species per category. The categories are thus also invalid as formulated. However, in each of those categories I have also eliminated some candidates such that the unknown pongids of Africa are removed from unknown status - they are very likely displaced or unusual chimpanzees and gorillas. The remaining Asiatic and American pongids are all mostly like orangutans and do form a recognisable sequence, although they may not belong to the same species ... By the same token, ALL of the giant monkeys are very likely merely outsized monkeys of known species, except for the South American Isnachi. It should be noted that it was a major error to make one category for both Old World and New World monkeys in the same group.





ADDITIONAL:
My Friend Jeffrey Patterson on Facebook has a collection of some pretty recognizable faces found in so-called "Blobsquatch" videos. One of the recent ones he has sent to me has that distinctive "Caveman" look: it is an Ohio "Grassman"
 

 
I told him that one was clear enough I could probably recognize him if I should see him again.
And another one from a 2008 video posted on YouTube is a clear profile of a young ape:
 
And I am very nearly 100% certain both of these are exactly what they seem to be at first glance. They are the more humanlike and more apelike versions of the Eastern Bigfoot, Swamp Ape, Skunk Ape or Wood ape. And typical of both categories over much of Asia, Australia, North America and South America. And neither of them are really at all mysterious when you come right down to it.

Robert Lindsay Bigfoot News September 13, 2013

I have not been keeping readers posted about events in the World of Bigfooters. I'd have to say that since I've become involved in Bigfoot themed events and posting them to this blog, Ive become both disenchanted and discouraged. Not about the creature(s) itself (themselves) but at the quality of what is advanced as evidence and bickering among Bigfooters. Any more I would rather not get involved. Still readers do deserve an update and so I have decided to reprint Robert Lindsay's Bigfoot News blog from this morning.

by | September 11, 2013 · 10:11 PM
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/bigfoot-news-september-11-2013/

Bigfoot News September 11, 2013

Dr. Bryan Sykes study may well prove that Bigfoots exist. From multiple sources, I have now received the news that not only will the Sykes DNA study publish soon, it will also prove that Bigfoots exist. None of the sources would tell me this in so many words, but they certainly implied that the findings would be positive. So I am looking forward to publication of the study. On the other hand, it is possible though not likely that the sources are all wrong and the study could be negative.
 
Rick Dyer dead Bigfoot video is taking orders now. Dyer’s video After the Shot is now on sale for $129. It is said to contain 45 minutes of HD footage of the dead Bigfoot, Hank, that Rick definitely shot and killed in San Antonio, Texas last year. Rick says that the film was shot soon after the shooting by a film crew from a film company that he is associated with in some way. Rick says he had to pay the film crew $20,000 for their efforts.
He is only selling 100 copies, so he should make $13,000 off this video. Therefore, he is not even making his money back. Dyer says that the crew did an excellent job, much better than Rick could do, in shooting the movie, and that it looks very nice and professional. They will get 100 orders and then ship the video. This is so they can make at least $13K before the video goes viral on the Internet as they fully expect it to do.
The videos have not yet started shipping, so Dyer has not yet received 100 orders.
Each copy has some sort of markers on it to distinguish it from all of the others. Therefore, if anything gets uploaded to the Net, Dyer says he will know who put it up there he will sue the pants off them. However, almost no one is ever sued for uploading copyrighted content to the Web. The DMCA was written to avoid the lawsuit abuse associated with pirating videos. In general, a DMCA takedown order is issued to the website or whoever put the video up there. Youtube will ban you if you get three DMCA orders. In addition, Youtube protects its uploaders and will not give out their name to any copyright holders to avoid lawsuit abuse.
There is an extremely stupid and evil law that was written a while back that actually makes it a federal offense to upload copyrighted material to the Internet. Two people have so far been prosecuted under this idiotic law. One fellow uploaded a copy of a new Star Wars movie to the Net and Lucasfilm went after him.
Curious incident when someone pretended to order a copy of Dyer’s new video. Someone pretended to order a copy of the new video After the Shot and the order came up After the Hoax instead of After the Shot. The person who faked the order says they think Dyer got the title mixed up because he was working on some other video about the 2008 Dyer Bigfoot hoax. Obviously the skeptics are going to have a great time with this news!
It is recommended that Dyer skeptics get their hands on the video. The skeptics insist that this video is a hoax using a dummy prop as a dead Bigfoot. Although Christopher Noel and I disagree with that and feel that there is probably a real dead Bigfoot in the video, the possibly yet exists that this video may be a gigantic hoax. As the movie has not yet shipped, there is no evidence one way or the other whether this video is real or faked.
However, if it is fake and the skeptics can prove it, Dyer is taking a huge risk. He would be risking interstate commerce fraud for promising a video of a real Bigfoot and delivering a clever hoax. In addition, to the criminal offenses, Rick would be civilly liable and could be sued for damages in civil court by anyone who bought the video. I would like to see the skeptics get their hands on some of this video or stills from it at the very least so they can try to debunk it.
 
[I was contacted by Rick Dyer early on in the current hoax affair and basically that was all I needed to hear. I have unfriended him on Facebook and I tell anybody that asks me that he had nothing before and this time around he has nothing again. He thinks anybody involved in looking for Bigfoot is a fool and all he wants to do is have a laugh at their expense. My opinion only of course and you are free to disbelieve me if you like-DD]
 
Real Bigfoot photo from a state park in Florida.
A screenshot from a recent video of a Bigfoot hunting deer at dusk in Florida.
A screenshot from a recent video of a Bigfoot hunting deer at dusk in Florida.
I cannot remember the name of the video, but it was shot by a father and son who noticed cars pulled over by the side of the road in a state park in Florida (forget the name). In the video, you see a number of visitors pulled off the to the side of the road with their binoculars out looking at some odd events happening in a field about a mile away. Deer would pop up, run a bit, and then plunge down to the ground out of sight.The visitors were mostly tripping on the strange antics of the deer, and they did not seem to notice the other figure.
It was the strangest thing to see!
In the background, some sort of a bipedal creature seemed to be moving towards the deer. The deer appeared to be reacting to the bipedal creature. They seemed to fear that the creature was hunting them or trying to kill them and they were using strange eluding tactics to avoid the thing.
Whatever this is, I do not believe it is a hoax. You mean some guy, presumably in cahoots with the videographer, put on a Bigfoot suit a mile away from the road at dusk and moved his way towards some deer? No. Anyway, if it just a guy in a suit, the deer would figure it out and would not be acting so weird. They would just run away from the man or maybe just stand their ground since it is a state park and hunting is prohibited. There is no way that everyone who pulled over was in on some sort of a hoax, and it is extremely dubious that the man and his son were involved in a hoax with a man in a suit running around in the sawgrass at dusk.
So what else is it? Misidentification? Nope. It’s a bipedal creature and it looks large and hairy. What else could it be? It’s a Bigfoot or skunk ape.
Further, the rangers at the park acted very weird when the heard about this sighting, denying that it happened in the first place and even closing down the road where the sighting occurred. Furthermore, they tried to ticket the videographer apparently as a message to back off of his story.
In other words, just another government Bigfoot coverup!
My opinion: This is a real Bigfoot herding the deer, possibly towards another Bigfoot who is trying to hunt one. The quality of the screenshot and the video are not that great due to distance, but I do not see who this could be anything else. One thing I am sure it is not is a hoax. Notice the swaying motions of the arms and how much that looks like Patty from the Patterson film!
 
[Closeup by Dale D: note big round head of subject]
 
[The proportions are of course nothing like Patty and neither is the head shape. However "Being Authentic" does not necessarily mean "Like the Patterson Film". In this case the torso is impressively burly but the arms are shorter, and the proportions more human-like. It could still be a Skunk Ape, Eastern Bigfoot version but the best evidence is behavioral as Robert Lindsay states. The actions would be consistent with what I had heard about Eastern Bigfoot hunting deer up here in states further North.-DD]
 
 
Rocky Mountain Sasquatch Organization catches possible Bigfoot on video.
In this video shot in Rough Hollow, Utah by the RMSO, there are 38 seconds of a possible Bigfoot seen from 2:16 to 2:54. The Bigfoot goes from a crouching position to a kneeling position to all the way down on its stomach. The possible movements are very slow and deliberate so as not to cause notice. The possible creature is in dark black in the video and was not noticed until later on. Skeptics are saying it is a stump or a cave overhang or a shadow, but it appears to move. Do stumps, cave overhangs and shadows move while you are filming them? Overall, a good video.
 
Possible juvenile Bigfoot filmed in Havana, Florida on a game cam.
The video above just shows a still from the game cam. There is a very interesting shadow there that could well be a juvenile Bigfoot. It does somewhat resemble the Jacobs juvenile Bigfoot photo from a game cam in Pennsylvania. Those photos are definitely pictures of a juvenile Bigfoot. It can’t be anything else. This Havana photo may be a juvenile Bigfoot, and then again, it may just be a stump or a shadow.
Vladimir Putin believes that Yetis are real. Very interesting. Putin is the Prime Minister of Russia, and it is said that he believes that Yetis are real. We need more celebrity believers. I am quite certain that if Bigfoots are real then Yetis will be proven to be real someday too. A source close to the Ketchum Project told me that an initial male-female peaks study of a Yeti sample by Ketchum showed that they were related to Bigfoots but not the same species. The entire sample was used up by the quick and dirty test, and there was no more to test. Ketchum also stated herself that she believes that Yetis are real in addition to Bigfoots being real.
 
[There is a problem in that the Russians are abusing the term "Yeti", having appropriated the term from the Tibetan Plateau area where the term is native. It is now being used freely where the term "Almas" had been used in former decades. However since the term as it is used seems to apply to some of the same creatures also called Yetis in Tibet and Bigfoot in North America, the point may be moot. Please note that all terms are nonspecific, general-category references rather than specific references to specific creatures (They are regularly applied to more than one thing and more than one species, probably species from different families even.)-DD]
 
  1. Joerg Hensiek
  1.  Jacki Leighton-Boyce
     

 LucasJ
To RL;
Happened to see this about the Minnesota Iceman being put back on display again. I’m sure you are aware of the ‘Iceman’ story from the ’60′s.
What got me is that this ‘exhibit’ is in Austin, Texas…..perhaps RD is selling his video of his visit there….he doesn’t claim that the ‘dead bigfoot’ in his video is the one he shot.
anyway….I thought is was some what of a coincidence…site has a couple of pics also:
Thanks for your time,
J.Lucas
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/minnesota-iceman-photos_n_3517680.html
In the 1960s, the “Minnesota Iceman” was paraded from mall to fairground, leaving rumors of Bigfoot,
missing links and government conspiracy in its wake.
Then, just as quickly as the 6-foot-tall frozen beast surfaced, it vanished — until now.
Earlier this year, Steve Busti — owner of the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas —
bought the ice man from the family of its original owner in Minnesota. He’s going to once
again reveal the ape-like creature to the world starting July 3 at his museum.
Before his big purchase, Busti spent the last two years researching the Minnesota Iceman
and trying to pin down its location. He found that the original exhibitor, Frank Hansen,
had it in a freezer at his home for decades after its last showing. It’s still unclear
why the big, hairy popsicle’s tour abruptly ended.
Somehow, Hansen managed to keep Mr. Freeze out of the public eye until he died about
10 years ago. Busti also learned that rumors of the Minnesota Iceman being discovered
in Siberia were untrue.
“[Hansen] shot it in Wisconsin — its eyeball’s blown out and its arm is broken,”
Busti told HuffPost Weird News. “I couldn’t believe it had been in Minnesota the entire time.”
Hansen froze the remains and put them on display. What’s not explained, however,
is what the Minnesota Iceman really is. It’s big. Hair covers its entire body.
And it doesn’t look too happy. It’s easy to see why many continue to think it’s
proof of Bigfoot, and why others think it’s simply a primate. From Wisconsin.
Below are two never-before-seen photos from Hansen’s collection in the late 60s.
Busti wouldn’t show us photos of the Minnesota Iceman in its current state.
You’ll have to head to Texas to see for yourself.
[This story has also been covered on this blog before. It is interesting that Busti is quoting from Hansen's description which does not describe the model now on display in two key features-the broken arm and the popped-out eye-DD]


  1.  Joerg Hensiek
    On the Sykes study: also the first “rumours” sound very promising (for believers like me), one has to be cautious. Remember the DNA brought back by a British TV expedition to Bhutan in 2001 or 2002? The hair samples from a place called Sakteng were handed over to Sykes. Sykes told the press after the first check that his team found DNA “never encountered before”? After that nothing was heard from Sykes anymore, but when a British “cryptozoologist” asked him about more conclusive results about one year later, Sykes told him that it was DNA from an Asiatic/Himalayan black bear! Black bear?!! One would think, DNA of such an obvious species would be identified easily during the very first examination. I also wrote an email to his laboratory and they given me the same answer. So, why did Sykes told the press there was “unknown DNA” in it? Just a comment to “advise caution” regarding Sykes – at least for those believers who expect too much from this study.