The Utah Lakes Monsters

UTAH FOLKLORE SAYS the state’s Great Lakes house not one, not two, but five fearsome water monsters. Early Native Americans believed some lakes were cursed by ‘Water Babies’ who would coax travellers into the water to their deaths. By the time pilgrim settlers started to arrive, local tribes told tales of a giant water lizard, thirty feet long, with large ears and a mouth that would swallow men whole. Local natives said the great serpents had dis-appeared in the 1820s, but by the 1860s white settlers were reporting incidents involving huge, terrifying, scaly creatures.

The Utah and Bear Lakes in the north have had most sightings of these monsters; indeed, the description witnesses provide suggest these lakes each have one of a pair of twin water-dragons. One of the first appearances of these creatures was in 1864 when a local man, Henry Walker, was in the Utah Lake. He reported seeing something that looked like a giant snake, but with the head of a greyhound, which frightened him so much he fled the water. Over the years, there were frequent accounts of reputable people, including local priests, meeting the beasts. All witnesses provided the same description – that of a giant snake’s body with short, trunk-like legs rising out of the water with an enormous mouth and fearsome black eyes.

In the late 1860s the idea of hunting down the monsters gained favor. Young local men tried shooting at them. Some successfully hit their targets, although no one was ever able to sufficiently wound the beasts in order to capture them. One farmer heard rustling in his garden one night. Using only his old rifle, he confronted and shot the creature, only to discover it was his neighbor’s heifer. In 1870 real physical evidence was recovered, when fishermen from Springsville, a nearby town, found a large unidentified skull with a five-inch tusk on the jaw. The next year the Salt Lake Herald even revealed that the monster had been caught, but what happened to the body of the captured creature is unknown.

In 1871 two local men were out fishing on Bear Lake when they saw the monster rise from the water. They said they managed to hit the beast with shots from their rifles, but the beast just swam away. A wagon train captain called William Bridge said in 1874 that he had also seen the Bear Lake beast. Bridge reported that the creature had been about 20 yards from shore when it surfaced from the water. ‘Its face and part of its head was covered with fur or short hair of a light snuff color,’ he said. Bridge also described it as having a flat face with large eyes, prominent ears and a four or five-feet-long neck.

Bear Lake residents were so affected by Bridge’s testimony that they decided to make a trap to capture the beast. Two prominent local citizens, Brigham Young and Phineas Cook, hatched a plan which involved little more than a giant fishing line. They linked a 300-feet-long, one-inch-thick rope to a large hook with a huge slab of mutton attached as bait. The position of the rope was marked by a buoy floating on the lake surface. Although the trap was often robbed of meat, no monster was ever caught.Lake monster sightings had fallen away drastically by the end of the nineteenth century. 

There was one sighting of the Utah Lake creature in 1921, which marked a limited resurgence in interest, but then the whole area once again quietened down. Since then, one of the few reliable reports was in 1946 by a local Scout master who said he had seen the bizarre creature appear on the surface of the lake. The account was widely regarded to be so detailed and accurate that only the most ardent sceptic could doubt it. Local wags have also pointed out that Scouts don’t lie. 

But some still do question the truth of the Utah Lakes monsters. In his lecture on the subject to the Utah State Historical Society, local historian D. Robert Carter said he actually believed the monster was a species of giant bug – humbug.

Read More

The Skunk Ape

IN  THE  MID  1970s, a few years after the public release of Bigfoot footage, Florida police received  a  torrent  of  reports claiming a similar creature was living in the state’s   swamp lands. Many   witnesses described the beast as like an ape standing upright, seven feet tall and covered in light brown hair. In all it sounded like a Bigfoot clone, but there was one unique aspect to the Florida monster – it smelled like a strong mixture  of  rotten  eggs,  manure  and  an elephant’s cage. One witness said it had the scent of a skunk that had just been rolling around inside a dustbin lorry. It was giventhe name the ‘Skunk Ape’.

After the initial flurry of sightings, the Skunk Ape phenomenon waned. Some pictures, footprint casts and hair samples were collected, but appearances of the Skunk Ape came to an abrupt halt. There were suggestions it had been caught by the US Army and imprisoned at the Everglades National Park. This urban myth said that the creature escaped by smashing through a concrete wall and returned to his swampland home. Some Skunk Ape watchers believe he has taken up residence at the Big Cypress National Preserve, but none of the 70 rangers who patrol the area have ever seen him.In the last few years however, new sightings have appeared in Ochapee, Florida. A group of tourists who were being shown round the Everglades saw a large ape-like creature moving around the edge of a nearby swamp. Later it was seen crossing the road outside the house of a local fire chief. 

The man found his camera and photographed the beast as it retreated into the swampland. The photo does show a large brown, hirsute monster, but even the man who took the photograph says he thinks the creature could well be a man in an ape-suit. With confidence like that from first-hand witnesses, what hope is there that the Skunk Ape really exists?

Read More

The Ogopogo

WANTED  CRIMINALS  OFTEN  have  are ward  attached  to  their  heads. Now it seems mythical beasts are also the object of bounty hunters’ affections.Between August 2000 and September 2001 three companies from around Lake Okanegan promised $2 million to anyone who could find definitive, living proof that the fabled Ogopogo monster did exist. The crime the creature committed is hard to say, although there are stories of it seizing and murdering helpless native people out on the lake. It cannot be denied that the Ogopogo is a serial offender at causing civil unrest.

Lake Okanegan is in British Columbia, Canada. It is around 100 miles long and has areas almost 1000 feet deep. The native Salish tribe believed in a terrible serpent, which they called ‘N’ha-a-tik’, the ‘Lake Demon’. They said the beast had a cave dwelling near the middle of the lake, and they would often make sacrifices to please the monster. European settlers initially scoffed at the legends, but over the years the Ogopogo has established itself in the minds of many who live nearby.

From the mid 1800s white immigrants started seeing strange phenomena in the lake. One of the first stories told of a man crossing the lake with his two tethered horses swimming behind. Some strange force pulled the animals under, and the man only saved himself by cutting the horses loose.

Witnesses say the creature is anything up to 50 feet long, with green skin, several humps and a huge horse-like head. Some people have managed to closely view it as it ate water vegetation; they said the Ogopogo also had small feet or fins. It could be the North American cousin of the LochNess Monster. Most sightings have come from around the city of Kelowna, near the centre of the lake, and many monster watchers now agree that it seems to live in the area originally indicated in native legend.

Read More

Mothman

HIS STORY SOUNDS like the creation of an overworked comic book writer. AT seven-foot-tall, well built, humanoid monster with giant red, glowing eyes and huge  brown  wings,  a  creature  who  can ascend to the skies from a standing position, and  fly  at  astonishing  speeds,  and  who mutilates pets and instils instant fear in the hearts of all those who see him. Yet, for over a  year  in  the  mid  1960s  more  than  100 otherwise reliable residents of a small West Virginian town distinctly saw the horrifying figure that terrorised their community. They saw ‘Mothman’.

In early November 1966 various sightings of  a  huge,  strange  ‘bird’  were  reported around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, USA.On 12th November, five gravediggers preparing  a  plot  reported  seeing  a  ‘brown human  being’  take  to  the  air  from  some nearby trees and pass over their heads. It was not until three days later that the creature really terrified the community with a close encounter.

On 15th November, two young couples were driving together near the Mc Clintic Wildlife Preserve, just outside Point Pleasant. The area was known to locals as ‘TNT’, because it had been used as an explosives depot during the Second World War and there were many abandoned chemical and industrial plants in the vicinity. Late in the evening, the two couples approached an old generator plant and saw that its door appeared to have been ripped off. It was then that they noticed two huge red eyes shining out of the gloom at them. These hypnotic, staring discs were attached to what they said was ‘shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six or seven feet tall. And it had big wings folded against its back’.

As the creature approached, the young group sped off, but as they looked back they saw it take to the air, rising straight up without flapping its wings. It had a giant 10-foot wingspan, and kept pace with the car despite the vehicle reaching speeds of 100 miles an hour. Eventually the group reached the Point Pleasant city limits, where their aerial pursuer turned away and disappeared. The couples drove straight to the local police station and reported what they had seen. Although local police found nothing at TNT, they accepted the young people had seen something.Over the next few days reports of a giant ‘bird’ terrorising locals came into police headquarters with increasing frequency. Car passengers had experienced the creature swooping down on them, and the reception on television and radio sets were being disrupted across the region. 

One man whose television failed lived in Salom, 90 miles from Point Pleasant. At the exact moment his television stopped working, his dog whined from the porch. The man went outside to investigate and spotted two red, glowing lights in his hay barn, at which point his dog ran off. The man, stricken with fear, returned to his house, locked all the doors and windows. That night, he slept with his gun next to him. His dog was never seen again.Perhaps the most chilling story concerning Mothman happened on 16th November 1966. A young mother was driving to see some friends, who had one of the few houses close to the TNT compound. She said she had seen a ‘funny red light’ in the sky, and, as she arrived at her friends’ house, heard something rustling near her car.‘It seemed as though it had been lying down. 

It rose up slowly from the ground. A big grey thing. Bigger than a man, with terrible glowing eyes,’she said. Horrified, she grabbed her small daughter and ran into the house, locking the doors behind her. The creature followed, creeping onto the porch and staring in the windows. The police were called, but by the time they arrived, Mothman had dis-appeared.Over the next year, Mothman was seen by many witnesses including firemen and pilots. 

Gradually the reports altered into cases of UFOs, strange lights and ‘Men in Black’. At 17.00 on 15th December 1967 the Silver Bridge linking Point Pleasant to Ohio suddenly collapsed, 46 people died as a result, and the residents of Point Pleasant were forced to deal with real horror rather than mythical beasts. Their creature’s reign of terror paled into insignificance and he was forgotten. However, many people still believe the bridge disaster may have been Mothman’s terrible final act.

Read More

The Mongolian Deathworm

UNDER THE BURNING sand dunes of the Gobi desert there lurks a creature that is so feared by the Mongolian people they are scared even to speak its name. When they do, they call it the ‘Allghoi khorkhoi’, which means ‘the intestine worm’, because this fat, red, deadly snake-like monster looks similar to a cow’s innards. This giant worm, measuring up to four feet long, can kill people instantly. How it does it, no one knows. Some believe it spits a lethal toxin, others say it emits a massive electrical charge. However it kills, it does so quickly and can do it from a distance. We in the West have come to call this monster the ‘Mongolian Deathworm’.

Mongolian Nomads believe the giant worm covers its prey with an acidic substance that turns everything a corroded yellow colour. Legend says that as the creature begins to attack it raises half its body out of the sand and starts to inflate until it explodes, releasing the lethal poison all over the unfortunate victim. The poison is so venomous that the prey dies instantly.Because Mongolia had been under Soviet control until 1990, very little was known about the Deathworm in the West. In recent years, investigators have been able to look for evidence of the creature’s existence. Ivan Mackerle, one of the leading Loch Ness Monster detectives, studied the region and interviewed many Mongolian people about the worm. 

Due to the sheer volume of sightings and strange deaths, he came to the conclusion that the Deathworm was more than just legend. Nobody is entirely sure what the worm actually is. Experts are certain it is not a real worm because the Gobi desert is too hot an area for annelids to survive. Some have suggested it might be a skink, but they have little legs and scaly skin whereas witness accounts specify the worm is limb-less and smooth bodied. The most probable explanation is that it is a type of venomous snake. Although the native Mongolian people are convinced of the Deathworm’s nature, it will take more years of research to satisfy the rest of the world’s scientific community.

Read More

The Lusca and St Augustine Phenomena

‘WE   KNOW   MORE   ABOUT   the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of our deepest oceans,’ so the old saying goes. It is an adage that, over time, is proving more and more relevant. What creatures actually do lurk at the bottom of the sea? Around the Bahamas and the southeast American coast there are tales of a giant octopus that captures unwary swimmers and small boats. The people of the islands call it the ‘Lusca’ and believe it lives in deep underwater caves. However, no one has ever seen the creature in it natural environment and lived to tell the tale.One evening in November 1896 two men were cycling along the coast just outside their hometown of St Augustine, Florida. As they looked over the beach, they noticed a huge carcass. 

It was 23 feet long, 18 feet wide, four feet high, and it seemed to have multiple legs. The two men decided to tell Dr Dewitt Webb, the founder of the St Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science, who came to examine the corpse.Webb photographed the body, noting it was a silvery pink color, and took samples. Webb recorded that the skin was axe-proof, being three and a half inches thick. He also estimated that the body weighed around six or seven tonnes. It needed four horses and a whole team of people from the local community to drag it the painstaking 40 feet up the beach in order to keep it away from the rolling waves.

Webb was convinced it was not part of a whale, and must have been some kind of unknown giant octopus, so he sent letters describing the carcass to many eminent scientists. One such expert was Professor Verrill at the National Museum (now called the Smithsonian) in Washington DC. Verrill stated that the creature was actually a squid. When Webb sent him more information, he changed his mind and said it was an octopus. Verrill suggested it probably had tentacles around 100 feet long.Verrill refused to see the dead creature in person, or indeed to provide any funds or resources to help preserve the sea monster. 

Even so, the professor decided this new species should be named after himself, calling it ‘Octopus Giganteous Verrill’. Finally, he changed his mind again after receiving tissue samples, and said the body was probably just the head of a sperm whale. Webb was disappointed and preserved as many samples of the creature as he could. Eventually the corpse was retaken by the sea.Over fifty years later, two marine biologists, Dr F.G. Wood and Dr J.F. Gennaro Jr., discovered stories of the St Augustine sea monster in old newspaper clippings. 

They applied to the Smithsonian and took samples from the original specimens Webb had sent Verrill. Wood had worked in the Bahamas and knew of the famous ‘Lusca’. The legend said that it was a giant octopus, with arms seventy-five feet long, that lived in great deep blue holes in the sea floor. By looking at the samples, Wood and Gennaro were able to deduce that the body was indeed that of an enormous octopus. At long last, Webb had been proved right.In recent years other examples of huge, previously unknown, sea creatures have been discovered. 

Tales of giant squid have been told through the ages, but it is only in the last century that accurate and scientific details have been truly kept. Even in this day and age, some bizarre stories still have crop up. French fishermen have recently been attacked by one multi-legged sea creature, and marine biologists are constantly finding remains of squid which out-size the previously known largest.At the moment, the biggest giant squid find happened in April 2003 when a colossal squid was found in Antarctic waters. The example found was still immature, but had an overall length of around 50 feet. Octopi by comparison, are small fry, and the biggest, caught in March 2002, only measured 13 feet. So the beast at St. Augustine is still a truly unexplained phenomenon.

Read More

The Loch Ness Monster

OF  ALL  THE  MYTHICAL  BEASTS  in  theworld,  the  most  famous,  most hunted for, and most talked about must be ‘Nessie’ the Loch Ness Monster. She,for the Scottish monster is always seen as a not-so-wee lassie, is often the first phenomenon thought about when the subject of unexplained mysteries is raised. She is an internationally-known celebrity, who has probably done more for her native tourist industry than any other famous Scot. There have been Nessie documentaries, programmes, films and even cartoons. But although she appears each year to a select few, she has been too shy to debut in a major scientific investigation. So is Nessie really a strange creature, lost in time, and lurking at the bottom of Loch Ness?

Loch Ness is a 24-mile-long freshwater lake found in the Great Glenn, a massive crevice that cuts the Scottish Highlands in two. The loch is up to a thousand feet deep and, at some points, a mile-and-a-half wide. The first tale of a monster living in the water originates in AD 565 and features Saint Columba, who rescued a swimmer from the beast’s advances. Experts now generally feel that Saint Columba actually encountered a known, normal, marine animal that had ended up outside its natural environment. Although the loch continued to be the focus of strange sightings, it was not until the 20th century that the phenomenon really flourished. Loch Ness, Scotland. Could this be the home of a plesiosaur?

In 1933 the Loch Ness Lakeshore road was built. This initiated a flood of sightings and created the Nessie legend. In April that year, a local couple spotted an enormous animal rolling and playing in the water. They reported what they had seen to the man in charge of salmon stocks in the loch who then saw the monster himself, describing it as having a six-feet-long neck, a serpentine head and a huge hump. He suggested the creature was a total of 30 feet in length. In the July a family from London were driving along when they almost crashed into a massive dark, long-necked animal that strolled across their path and then disappeared into the water. Similarly, early the next year a young veterinary student was riding his motorcycle along the road when he almost struck a creature. He said what he saw had a large bulky body, with flippers, a long neck and a small head.

Over the years, many people have tried to capture the creature on film. One Nessie witness managed to take a rather inconclusive photograph of something appearing from the water in 1933. In 1934 a London doctor released a most mysterious photograph of the monster to the public. It showed a strange head and neck appearing from the water; 60 years later it was revealed to be a fake. In April 1960 an aeronautical engineer used a 16mm movie camera to film something moving through the loch’s waves. Although it has never been established exactly what is captured on the film, experts at the Royal Air Force’s photographic department have verified that the footage is not a fake and has not been tampered with. Dinsdale himself devoted the rest of his life to finding Nessie.

Recent years have also provided new sightings. In June 1993, a couple were on the bank of the loch when they saw a huge, strange creature lolling about in the water. They said it must have been about 40-feet-long, with a giraffe-like neck and very light brown flesh. Later that same evening, a father and son were on their way home when they spotted something odd in the water. They later told reporters they saw an animal with a neck like a giraffe swimming swiftly away from the shore. Because of the evidence accrued during these two episodes, bookmakers William Hill slashed the odds of there really being a Loch Ness Monster from 500-1 to 100-1.

Despite over 3,000 similar sightings by private individuals, Nessie has always been coy about exposing herself to dedicated, scientific research teams. The Academy of Applied Science from Boston, Massachusetts operated the first extensive expedition in the early 1970s. Using underwater cameras and The first photo of the Loch Ness Monster, which sparked the current ‘Nessiemania’.sonar equipment, the project captured images of what looked like an eight-foot-long flipper, an unusual 20-foot-long aquatic body, and even a hazy photo of a creature’s face. However, an organised, structured sonar sweep of the loch in 1987, named ‘Operation Deepscan’, revealed the earlier portrait picture of Nessie was actually a tree stump. That said, Deepscan did report various, unaccounted-for, large sonar echoes moving about in the extreme depths of the loch.

Although these hunts have proved inconclusive, other recent scientific evidence has been more hopeful. In March 2000, a team of Norwegian scientists, the Global Underwater Search Team, picked up bizarre noises in the loch’s water. At one point whatever was making the sounds even crashed into the team’s underwater microphone. This group had already recorded unusual sounds from another mythically monster-infested lake in Norway. The strange noises found in Loch Ness are described as a cross between a snorting horse and a pig eating, closely matching the experiences in Norway. Not only does this suggest there are unknown creatures in both lakes, but they might actually be related. In recent years, sonar equipment has also discovered huge underwater caverns opening onto the bottom of the loch. 

These structures have been termed ‘Nessie’s Lair’, and may well be large enough to house and hide a whole family of monsters.It is agreed that a breeding colony of beasts would be needed to continue its existence, and some witness accounts have reported more than one Nessie appearing on the water’s surface. Nessie’s actual species is still unknown although experts have suggested it may be a manatee or type of primitive whale. It my also be a large otter, a long-necked seal, a huge eel, or even a giant walrus. However, Nessie seems to bear a much stronger resemblance to a creature now thought to be extinct. This is called the plesiosaur, a marine dinosaur that has not been found on Earth for over 60 million years. It had large flippers, a small head and a large body, and some experts believe a few of these animals were stranded in the loch after the last Ice Age.None of these suggestions are completely plausible. 

Even if the plesiosaur did survive the disaster that wiped out the rest of its fellow prehistoric creatures, it is generally believed to be a cold-blooded animal, and would find the chilly environment of a Scottish lake too cold to survive. If Nessie is really a modern day aquatic mammal like a whale or a seal, then it would constantly have to come to the surface for air, resulting in many more sightings. One cannot help but feel there might actually be something in the murky depths of Loch Ness. With a continued interest that actually grows with each unsuccessful scientific study, this loch remains the home of the world’s most mysterious, unexplainable monster.

Read More

The Grey Man of Ben MacDhui

IN THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS lies a mountain where many have felt a dread quite unlike anything else they have ever experienced.As the fogs and mists roll across the cairns, they say there lurks a creature huge and terrifying. They call it ‘Am Fear Liath Mor’, or the ‘Big Grey Man’. Some see him as an old figure in robes, a giant, or even a devil. The creature does not just threaten with a force of physical power, this beast also causes an almost suicidal sense of depression and panic in all who come near it.

Ben MacDhui is the second highest mountain in Scotland, standing at over 4,000 feet. It is an imposing sight and a substantial test for experienced climbers. Many of the witnesses who see, or feel the presence of, the Grey Man are serious, hardened mountaineers, not prone to flights of fancy. The first person to reveal he had met the mountain’s strange tenant was Professor Norman Collie. Collie was a respected and well known climber, but when he gave his speech to the Cairngorm Club in 1925, the audience was truly stunned.

Collie explained that he had been coming down from the peak of Ben MacDhui in 1891 when he heard footsteps behind him. At first, shrouded in mist, he rationalised that it must just have been an echo of his own footfalls. But eventually he realised the noises he heard were not corresponding to the movements he was making. It sounded like a giant was following him. He said it was‘as if someone was walking after me, but taking steps three or four times the length of my own.’

Terrified, Collie blindly ran for four or five miles down the mountainside until he could no longer hear the noise. Collie never returned to the mountain, and to his dying day resolutely believed there was, ‘something very queer about Ben MacDhui.’During the Second World War, Peter Densham was a mountain rescue worker, locating and saving pilots who had crashed in the Cairngorms. One day he was at the top of Ben MacDhui when a heavy mist started to fall. He sat and waited for conditions to improve. After a while he began to hear strange crunching noises and suddenly felt a presence close by. He stood up to investigate, but was immediately seized by a feeling of panic. Before he realised what was happening, he was running down the mountain, dangerously close to the sheer cliff edge. He said afterwards ‘I tried to stop myself and found this extremely difficult to do. It was as if someone was pushing me. I managed to deflect my course, but with a great deal of difficulty.’

Since then, many people have spotted a strange being, or felt an overpowering sense of impending doom in the area. One of the most recent encounters occurred in the early 1990s. Three men were walking in a forest just outside Aberdeen. One of the party spotted a human-shaped figure running across the track a little way ahead of them. He told his friends, and when they all looked in the same direction they saw a strange, not-quite-human face. A few weeks later, the same group were driving in the area when they realised they were being followed by the same tall, dark being. The creature kept pace, even at speeds of 45 miles an hour, but eventually tired and stopped. Again, these men felt a distinct sense of terror and foreboding.

Monster enthusiasts have plenty of ideas about the beast’s origin. Some say he could be an alien, or the ghost of an old Highland race, or even a mystical, wise religious figure. One interesting theory is that atop Ben MacDhui there is a gateway to another dimension, and this creature is the gatekeeper. If this really is his role, then he is doing a good job. After an experience with the Big Grey Man, very few people have dared to venture up Ben MacDhui again.

Read More

Bigfoot

IN THE WILDS OF NORTH AMERICA a mysticalape like creature hides in the shadows. Standing over seven feet tall and having an immense, muscled body, it should be hard to stay concealed. Many that see him say he just disappears into the background. Like a man, he walks upright, but the short black hair covering his entire body indicates he is no  homo-sapien.  No  bodies,  bones  or remains have ever been found despite more than two centuries of searching. The only evidence we have of this mythical beast is its huge  tracks.  That  is  why  the  creature  is named ‘Bigfoot’.

Like many legendary Native American monsters, Bigfoot is a central part of indigenous traditional tales. They call him ‘Sasquatch’, the ‘hairy giant of the woods’. But it was his early personal introduction to European settlers that sparked off real interest. In 1811, David Thompson, a white trader, was in the north Rocky Mountains when he spotted a set of massive 14 by 8-inch footprints. Over many years, the tales of Sasquatch spread and on 4th July 1884, the Daily Colonist newspaper in British Columbia was proud to announce that a train crew had caught a strange beast. In reality, the stocky, black-haired primate that they trapped was probably just a chimpanzee.

The American and Canadian mountains gradually grew awash with stories of Sasquatch appearances; there were even reports of gangs of strange creatures attacking people in the forests. The Sasquatch phenomenon was never solely focused on the idea of a single creature, and people have always considered there might be a breeding colony. At that time, the mystical beasts were primarily of interest to lumberjacks, miners and those who lived or worked in areas where it had been sighted.

That changed in 1958 when Jerry Crew, a bulldozer operator working in Humboldt County, California, made casts of the bizarre footprints he had found. A local newspaper photographed Crew, and his picture was syndicated across the United States. The sight of a man holding a plaster cast record of the tracks of a mysterious beast started the modern Bigfoot legend. But if Crew’s discovery helped to launch the myth, it was an episode nine years later that sealed Bigfoot’s place in the American consciousness.

In October 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were riding on horseback through Bluff Creek, north California. They were in the area specifically looking for Bigfoot. Suddenly one appeared in their path, and Patterson was thrown from his horse. Whilst Gimlin kept a rifle trained on the beast, Patterson quickly regained his footing and ran towards the creature, filming all the time with a cine camera they had taken with them. The result is perhaps the most enigmatic evidence yet. The footage shows a large hairy biped slowly strolling into the undergrowth. Experts who have closely studied the film suggest it is a female Bigfoot, as two mammary glands are just discernible on its front.

Although the evidence is startling, many have questioned its authenticity. Some experts believe, if the film is played at a slightly faster speed, it could easily be a human in a costume. However, aspects of the footage are quite amazing. For example, biotechnology scientists have said that for a creature like Bigfoot to walk upright it would need an extended heel. The creature on the film has an extended heel.

Experts in the industry initially expected the film merely to be special effects, but they have been unable to find any tell-tale signs that it is a hoax. Similarly, a group of Russian scientists who attempted to determine the correct speed of the film came to the conclusion that the creature really did have a long, lumbering gait. However, Gimlin himself has entertained the possibility that he might have been an unwitting participant in a hoax orchestrated by his friend. This we shall never know as Patterson died of cancer in 1972.

More recent sightings of the ape-man have taken on a new and bizarre twist. People have reported seeing UFOs in the regions of Bigfoot appearances. Also, the creatures are now said to have bright red eyes and be carrying glowing orbs. This may seem a strange development, but Sasquatches were always reported as having a quality beyond the physical, and it has always been suggested that when they die, Bigfoot bodies vanish into the ether. This is a shame, because to really accept Bigfoot’s presence, the world needs to see some hard, physical evidence.

Read More

The Beast of Bodmin

THE BEAST OF BODMIN: whether it is a native cat, previously thought extinct, or an escaped exotic pet, the Beast of Bodmin is a creature that refuses to disappear. Indeed, sightings of the panther-like creature continue apace and, unlike other mysterious beasts, modern technology is actually helping to prove its existence. Bodmin Moor is an area of National Park land in Cornwall, southwest England. Since 1983 there have been over sixty sightings of big cats in the area, and some experts suggest there may be a whole breeding population on the moors. In fact, one recent sighting was of a mother cat and her cub together. Despite wide-ranging testimonials from reliable witnesses, a British government report in 1995 concluded that there was no evidence of big cats on the moors.

However, since 1995 some quite startling, tangible evidence has been produced. A 20-second video released in July 1998 clearly shows a large black animal roaming the moor. Experts believe the footage is the best evidence yet to support the idea that big cats are living in the area. Many also suggest the beasts may be a native species of cat which was thought to have become extinct over a hundred years ago. Around the time of the video release, Maurice Jenkins, a quarry weighbridge worker was driving near Exmoor, near Bodmin, when he spotted an odd beast at the side of the road. He trained his car headlights on the creature. 

Jenkins said afterwards:‘It was a big black pussycat. His eyes reflected in my headlights and I slowed down so I could get a better look and it sat watching me. It was the size of a collie dog with jet-black head and tail. He leapt away and made off into the fields.’

Real biological evidence has also been found in recent years. A large skull with huge fangs was found near the River Fowey on Bodmin Moor. The bones were sent to mammal specialists at the British Natural History Museum who, when they examined it, quickly realised that the skull did not belong to a creature normally found in the English countryside. Because of the size and position of the teeth, they also deduced that it was the head of a large cat.

In November 1999 a spate of farm animal mutilations on Bodmin Moor caused a high-tech option to be introduced in finding the beast. When a calf and two sheep were attacked and torn apart by an unknown creature, a motion-activated infrared video camera was installed on the moor. Similarly, in January 2001, reserve volunteers from a nearby Royal Air Force base used state-of-the-art night-vision military equipment to hunt for the creature. Rather than practise exercises against an imaginary foe, RAF commanders thought that it would be more interesting for the troops to look for the fabled Beast of Bodmin. Whether the RAF found any trace of the Beast is not known.

The Beast strikes again; or is it in fact a fox with a rabbit? Certainly, the idea of strange big cats roaming Britain is not totally bizarre. In May 2001, a peculiar, vicious-looking wild animal was found in the garden of a house in Barnet, north London. A huge team of armed police, RSPCA inspectors and vets were needed to capture what turned out to be a lynx. A similar event happened in September 1998 when people living close by, in Potters Bar and South Mimms, were told to stay indoors whilst police looked for a large cat sighted there. Generally, however, such animals pose little threat to the human population.

Farmers in southwest England do not agree that these creatures are so benign, and many sceptics believe the Beast of Bodmin is, if anything, an escaped foreign cat. A number go missing from zoos and wildlife parks each year, and Britain’s 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act made ownership of exotic big cats illegal. Some people believe that if such a pet were to escape from a private collection, its owner would be hesitant to report it missing. Whatever the truth about its origin, there is growing, indisputable evidence that a large, black, feral cat is stalking the land of Bodmin Moor.

Read More