A Footprint Expert Meets Bigfoot

 

    Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science by Jeff Meldrum (2007), Forge Trade, 320 pp, paperback and Kindle.

    Dr Jeff Meldrum is Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho University. He has extensively studied the adaptations of the feet of African primates with their implications in the evolution of human bipedalism, and was the senior editor of the scientific book, From Biped to Strider: the emergence of modern human walking, running, and resource transport. In short, he is an expert on human, monkey and ape feet and gaits, and the sort of footprints they produce. But then, in 1996 in the Blue Mountains of Washington State, he was introduced to a set of footprints which blew his mind.

When Roger Met Patty: Review

 

When Roger Met Patty by William Munns (2014), Createspace Independent Publishing, Platform, 510 pp, paperback and Kindle.

    In October 1967 Roger Patterson rode into the area of Bluff Creek, California hoping to film a bigfoot. And he did! This was just nine years after the whole concept of bigfoot had been publicised by the appearance of some remarkable footprints at Bluff Creek, and by John Green's discussions on the sasquatch in Canada. What incredible good fortune! And nothing like this has been filmed since. Yes, especially since the advent of digital photography and phone cameras, innumerable films purporting to show such a creature have surfaced, but nothing of this clarity.

     The Patterson-Gimli film, to give its official title, and "Patty", the whimsical name of its subject, has been the focus of intense controversy ever since. Even its detractors admit that, if it is a hoax, it is a very good one. But could it really be just a man in a gorilla suit and if it was, how was it made? Or is a really possible that such a creature could actually exist and, if so, that Patterson was one of the luckiest documentary makers in history? Fortunately, now an expert has entered into the fray.

More on the Malayan Ape-Man

      Who knows what mysterious creatures might walk out of the jungles of southeast Asia? Rumours abound of strange bipedal apes sequestered in those rainforests. Many US troops saw them in Vietnam and called them "rock apes". (See also here.) But it is on the Malay peninsula that things get really weird.

      A year and a half ago I reported on Harold Stephens' expedition in search of the orang dalam, and his discovery of humanoid footprints consistent with something 8 feet or 2.4 metres in height. The orang dalam would thus appear to be similar to the North American bigfoot. But this is pedestrian compared to what came out of the jungle at Christmas 1953. I also reported Harold Stephens' summary of those events. On three occasions there were encounters with two male and one female humanoids with pale skin, long body hair, and protruding fangs, all of them wearing rough loin cloths, and with the males sporting mustaches which reached to their waists. This represented a whole new level of weirdness. They sounded like some bizarre group of human beings. Now, however, I have just come across a document published in 1957, which not only provides full details of the encounters, but contains a lot of follow-up information.

A Bug-Eyed Monster off New Zealand

      Readers will no doubt be familiar with the name of Ivan T. Sanderson who, along with Bernard Heuvelmans, was one of the founders of cryptozoology. All sorts of other Fortean phenomena captured his imagination, if not always his critical faculties, with the result that he founded the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU), with its journal, Pursuit. Now, in my old age, I am going through my own copies of this journal, and thus happened to come across an article inspired by a clipping from a Japanese newspaper. So, as this blog seeks to rescue stories which are likely to get overlooked or lost, I shall republish it here verbatim. The comments at the end were, I presume, written by Sanderson himself. As for the last sentence, there does not appear to have been any follow-up. And no, I have no idea what the animal was. If any reader is an expert in large marine life and has any suggestions, they are welcome.

The 1983 Californian Sea Serpent

       Personally, I consider sea serpents more credible than lake monsters. It's the logistics of it all. The sea is vast, and we move across it with noisy vessels along narrow sea lanes. Anything could be there. Lakes are small, and tend to be surrounded by people. What lives there ought to be seen a lot more often. Yet, when I was researching the digitalised files of Australian newspapers for Australian and foreign sea serpents, I noticed something peculiar: up to the Second World War, it was respectable to see and report sea serpents, often uncritically. However, once the war started, people had much more important things to talk about, and after that date, although it has become respectable to see and report lake monsters, reports of sea serpents droppedoff  dramatically. But they still turn up. One case was in late 1983, off the coast of California. Again, I have the old International Society of Cryptozoology to thank for the summary. Although it is anonymous, the author was almost certainly the editor, J. Richard Greenwell.

A "Tree Crocodile" in Papua?

       The jungle clad mountains and valleys of New Guinea, just north of Australia, have turned it into a vast patchwork of "ecological islands" with new, rare, species just waiting to be discovered. By following up clues left by the natives, one of our more prominent zoologists, Dr. Tim Flannery managed to locate two new species of tree kangaroo concealed in localised pockets. The possibility that the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, believed to be extinct in Australia, may still exist in the Indonesian half of the island, is something I have discussed in this blog (here and here) and in my up-dated second edition of Bunyips and Bigfoots. Just the same, it was still a surprise to discover a 1955 article by a certain Walker Pearson, about a legendary giant lizard, or "tree crocodile" in Papua. Not only that, but he was able to cite, not only native legends, but credible reports by Europeans concerning the cryptid.

The Thylacine That Wasn't

       When researching reports of mystery animals in Australia, the ones which give me the most headaches are not alien big cats (which shouldn't be here), nor the bigfoot-like yowie (which definitely shouldn't be here!), No, they are the ones describing thylacines, or Tasmanian tigers, on the mainland. The reason is, firstly, they were never recorded there in historic times (at least, not in the areas where they are now being reported) and, secondly, it is just so easy to mistake a mundane animal for a thylacine. The most disconcerting thing is, there still remain a residuum of cases which are not so easy to reject. So, my initial feelings were, "Here we go again!" when, earlier this month, I received an e-mail from a Mr. David Szabo concerning his experience in southeast Queensland, close to the New South Wales border. He has generously agreed to let me share the story.

Yes, There Really Are Pygmy Elephants.

      Let's be realistic: the idea of a big hairy ape stomping around North America, all unnoticed by science, is weird. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is definitely counter-intuitive. Even weirder still is the idea of monsters, which don't breathe air, lurking in our lochs and lakes. But there is nothing weird about pygmy elephants wandering the trackless depths of the African jungle. The jungle is big enough to hold them all. The pygmy elephant was described back in 1906, and named Loxodonta pumilio, and since then they have been repeatedly sighted in the wild, and live specimens have even turned up in zoos. Nevertheless, the scientific consensus has been that they were just dwarf individuals of the known elephant species, or juveniles roaming in their own temporary bands. 

     Nevertheless, 30+ years ago, two German zoologists, Drs Martin Eisentraut and Wolfgang Bohme marshalled the evidence and produced two papers establishing the existence of the animals. As they were published in German in the journal of the Cologne Zoo, a publication not prominent in the libraries of English speaking universities, they were largely ignored by English speaking scientists. Fortunately, the now defunct International Society of Cryptozoology got hold of them and summarised them in their newsletter. It is these summaries which I now intend to summarise in turn.

Up Close and Personal with Ogopogo

     I was a foundation member of the International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC) in 1982, even contributing to its peer reviewed journal, Cryptozoology, and continued until it folded in 1998. Recently, I was going through the old Newsletters, and found an article I remember well: of a close encounter with Ogopogo which, I am sure you are aware, is the monster of Lake Okanagan in British Columbia, Canada. Reading it again, I realised that it had never been published elsewhere. As you are unlikely to have any copies of the ISC Newsletter, I shall share it with you. The author was anonymous, but was almost certainly the editor, J. Richard Greenwell, now deceased.

Apes in North Queensland

      The yowie, for those who are unaware, is the Australian version of the North American bigfoot. Of course, it shouldn't exist, because Australia is marsupial country, and no non-flying, non-swimming placental mammal larger than a rat has ever arrived here without human help. I didn't believe in it, until the evidence became too strong to ignore. In their definitive work on the subject, The Yowie, Tony Healy and Paul Cropper catalogue sightings and encounters from the south of the continent all the way up to north Queensland. Newspapers have not been as active in reporting sightings as they used to be, but last month a major capital city newspaper provided a glimpse into the situation in north Queensland. I have therefore decided to copy the report which appeared on page 26 of The Sunday Mail (Brisbane) on 7 February 2021.

"Bunyips and Bigfoots" is Back!

      Doesn't time fly! It was a quarter of a century ago - in 1996- that my book, Bunyips and Bigfoots, in search of Australia's mystery animals was published. Since then, it appears to have become a boon to second-hand booksellers. From a recent websearch, I notice that the asking price varies from $50 to $220 US. At least that's lower than the £3000 (pounds, not dollars!) one seller was asking in late 2013. Even I admit that it wasn't worth that much. Never fear, however; I have just published an up-dated second edition at a reasonable price in both print-on-demand paperback and Kindle editions.

Big Footprints in the Malayan Jungle

      Last month I introduced you to the orang dalam, or "man of the interior", the bigfoot or abominable snowman of Malaya. To be more precise, I copied extracts of the background information unearthed by Harold Stephens in his Argosy article of August 1971. I promised that this month I would describe his expedition of that year (?) in search of the monster. But first, I need to cite how he first heard about it.

Introducing the Malayan Bigfoot

      Throughout the world stories crop up of unknown bipedal apes which live solitary lives, and are largely nocturnal. The North American bigfoot, or sasquatch is usually described as being like a gorilla on stilts ie it is massive and tall, just as you would expect if a gorilla had legs like a human. The Australian yowie - which definitely shouldn't exist, because it is not a marsupial - is almost identical. It is what lies between which is peculiar. The người rừng of Vietnam appears to be man-sized, while Sumatra's orang pendek, as its name ("short man") is much smaller, and the batutut of Sabah appears to be of similar size. However, the jungles of Malaya are alleged to harbour something much bigger: the orang dalam, or "man of the interior". They are still being reported, and there are citizens who are looking for them. But what came out of the Terolak Forest Reserve in Perak (3° 53' N, 101° 22' E) in late 1953 represents a new level in weirdness.

When Scientists Were Visited by a Yeti

      The trouble with cryptozoology is that its data are all over the place - newspapers, magazines, websites, in fact, everywhere except in peer-reviewed scientific literature. We really need a central registry of personal testimonies, and in lieue of something better, this blog will have to do. So let us take the case of the zoologists camped on a snow-covered pass in the Himalayas, who were visited in the night by an abominable snowman. It is surprising this has not received more comment and discussion in the scientific literature (or perhaps it isn't surprising).

Forgotten Bigfoots Around the World - a New Book

      Everyone has heard of the bigfoot, or sasquatch of North America, but it is not so well known that reports of similar beings exist in every continent except Antarctica. Ivan T. Sanderson did a fairly good job of summarising the evidence in his 1961 book, Abominable Snowmen: legend brought to life - though even he managed to miss the yowie of Australia, one continent where such animals definitely should not exist. Now I have published a new book on the subject - in both paperback and e-book editions, and available through Amazon - to provide information otherwise unavailable to the average Anglophone reader. 

Lost 20th Century Sea Serpents

     Last month I ransacked the digitalised archives of Singaporean newspapers for sea serpent reports of the 19th century, checked them against cases recorded by earlier researchers, and published those previously unknown. This month I shall complete the process for 20th century reports. Again, we have the problem that the journalists asked no questions, but limited themselves to the information the witnesses volunteered.

Lost 19th Century Sea Serpents

     As I said in my May 2020 post, I thought I had finished with forgotten sea serpent reports, when Paul Cropper suggested I look at the newly digitalised Singaporean, and some Malayan, newspapers. As before, I have checked every report against those in Heuvelmans' In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, and my own Forgotten Sea Serpents, based on Australian newspapers. Anything not found in these is assumed to have been overlooked by previous researchers. So here goes.

Half Snake, Half Crocodile, Fully Forgotten

     Java: the most densely populated island in Indonesia, hills terraced right to the summit, miles and miles of incredibly beautiful scenes of paddy fields surrounded by green trees. (I know; I've been there.) The native tiger drifted into extinction in the 1970s. The native rhinoceros is holding on by its toenails to a single small peninsula. This is one place where you'd never expect an unusual and unknown animal to reside, isn't it? Well, here is a story originally told in 1899, although the event itself took place thirty years before.

The Amazing "Nestor" Sea Serpent of 1876

     Ah, the irony! I had started this blog intending to use it for translations of foreign language articles on cryptozoology, along with specific Australian reports which had come my way. These, of course, can still be found if you consult the Index. However, it seems that for the last couple of years it has been used to chronicle sea serpent reports overlooked by previous researchers. I had thought I had finished with it all, and had just published my two books, Australian Sea Serpents and Forgotten Sea Serpents, when I received a Facebook message from Paul Cropper. Our association went back 32 years, when we collaborated on a paper about Australian Sea Serpents, and now he suggested I check the digitalised newspapers of Singapore. Thank you, Paul! I have now done it, and this is the first installment. This is not an unknown case. Indeed it is one of most famous ones, because it is so unusual. My reason for citing it is that I now have some earlier information, and the descriptions differ somewhat.

Introducing Three New Books

     I am pleased to announce that I have just published three new cryptozoological books, made possible by the mass digitalisation of old newspapers, journals, and other documents by the Australian National Library. The first two, The Truth About Bunyips and Australian Sea Serpents, will, I am confident, become the definitive works on the respective subjects. The third, Forgotten Sea Serpents will be required reading for all those seeking to complete their documentation of this unusual subject. These books are available in both paperback and e-book format from most branches of Amazon. (I know I have even sold a couple in Japan.)

The Footprint on the Cliff Face

    If you visit Carnarvon Gorge, Central Queensland, as thousands do, you will come to a cliff face where the aborigines have carved the footprints of numerous animals, perhaps as a blackboard for their children. Only a sign erected by the National Parks and Wildlife Service will alert you to the fact that one of them is not referable to any known animal. However, a keen cryptozoologist will immediately recognize its similarity to a footprint found north of Cardwell, nearly 900 km away.

     Well, that was what I wrote on page 69 of Bunyips and Bigfoots, introducing the chapter on the north Queensland tiger. To my surprise, however, in the quarter century since then I have discovered that I appear to be the only person aware of it. Those who mention it always cite my book. The current staff of the Carnarvon National Park don't know about it. They used to, and they should, but they don't. With this in mind, it is time I set the record straight.

Last Forgotten Sea Serpents (1926 to 1931)

     I know I've said this before, but this probably really is my last post on old sea serpent sightings. As before, they represent foreign cases which turned up in Australian newspapers, but which earlier researchers had apparently missed. Most of these were reported in the major capital cities dailies, but many others were picked up by minor rural newspapers, often at random. Which makes one wonder how many others are "out there", waiting to be unearthed.

More Forgotten Sea Serpents, 1914 to 1926

     Once more, I present a collection of sea serpent reports which have appeared in Australian newspapers, having been obtained from foreign dailies, often some time previously.

Forgotten Sea Serpents, 1905 to 1911

     Here is the next installment of reports of sea serpents which had apparently been missed by previous researchers.

1903 Was a Good Year for Sea Serpents

     1903 was a good year for sea serpents. Heuvelmans, in his classic compendium, listed a dozen cases for that year. However, here are a few which he missed. The first one is rather strange even by sea serpent standards.

Forgotten Sea Serpents, 1900 to 1902

     Would you believe it? I thought I had finished my cataloguing of forgotten sea serpents, but it turns out that I had overlooked a heap from the early days of the twentieth century. Again, these are cases which have never been published in book form before; they escaped the eagle eyes of such investigators as Oudemans, Gould, and Heuvelmans. As before, they are cases which had been picked up by Australian newspapers, although most would have originally been published overseas. As before, I have chosen the earliest and/or most detailed report, but the events themselves may have occurred a few weeks or even a few months before.

The Gatton Yowie, 1998

     Monday 9 February 1998: there I was, at my desk, minding my own business - or rather, my employer's business - when the phone rang. I found myself talking to a rather excited man, who initially refused to give his last name, asking if I knew anything about apes in Australia. Apparently, he had phoned the Queensland Museum and had been transferred to Dr. Ralph Molnar, the dinosaur expert, because he was the only staff member interested in cryptozoology. Dr. Molnar had then referred him to me. I told him that, yes, I had recently had published a book on Australian mystery animals, and that I had reluctantly accepted that the "yowie", or Australian version of the bigfoot, really existed. He now wanted me to promise that I would believe his story. I explained that this was too much to ask before I heard it, but that I could promise to take it seriously. He wanted information because of a dramatic incident experienced by a couple of his friends at Gatton, but if I ever mentioned his name, he would deny everything. Clearly, I was not dealing with any publicity hound.

Forgotten Sea Serpents of 1879

     I am about to travel overseas, but first I might as well return to chronicling past sea serpent reports which have apparently remained unnoticed by former compilers. As explained in earlier posts, they were published in various newspapers around the world, then picked up by the press in Australia. Again, I have chosen what appear to be the earliest and fullest accounts, but it is possible that the original reports appeared a couple of months before. In the late nineteenth century the world press took sea serpent sightings seriously - sometimes too seriously. I have omitted some too outrageous to be true, including some in which the animal was alleged to have been captured, or at least a specimen taken, then never heard of again. Anyway, we shall start with the first of 1879.

Two Unknown Bipedal Apes in the Congo

    This may be my last translation. Charles Cordier (1897-1994) was a Swiss zoo collector who worked for the Bronx Zoo in New York. In the late 1940s he and his wife, Emy made a lengthy expedition to the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), specifically to collect the Congo peacock, which had been identified only in 1936! However, what I presume was his last expedition to the Congo coincided with the violence and anarchy of Congo Independence. Nevertheless, as well as catching gorillas using nets (they don't do that sort of thing any more) in what can only be labelled the geographic centre of Africa, he heard rumours of not one, but two unknown apes.  Here, then, is his account, translated from the French.

The Last (Forgotten) Sea Serpents of the 19th Century

     Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I have been systematically seeking out and publishing reports in Australian newspapers of sea serpents witnessed in other parts of the world which have been missed by earlier investigators, in particular, Oudemans, Gould, and Heuvelmans. This post is the final in the series, and brings the story up to the last years of the nineteenth century. (Twentieth century sightings have been recorded in earlier posts.) Once more, I have chosen the earliest Australian report, but the original may have been taken from a foreign newspaper weeks, or sometimes months, beforehand.

The Great Koolunga Bunyip Hunt of 1883

They sought it with thimbles,
They sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
 (The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll, 1876)

Bunyip: The bogey of the bush, a mythical monster which lurks in the rivers and swamps of inland Australia, and makes Aborigines turn white with terror. Everyone has heard about the bunyip, but no-one can tell you what it looks like.
Koolunga, South Australia: population 195, the epitome of a one horse town. You'll need a really detailed map to find it, so I shall give the co-ordinates: 33½° S, 138.1° E, on the banks of the Broughton River, 33 km south of Crystal Brook, and 46 km north west of Clare.
     Yet, in early 1883 it was the centre of a colourful bunyip hunt which kept the rest of the continent amused long after it had ended with a blast. No doubt many readers in Queensland and Tasmania were asking themselves at the time: "Where the [expletive] is Koolunga?"

New Zealand's Mystery Animal

     Going through my papers, I discovered a translation I made from the German more than forty years ago on the waitoreke, an alleged native mammal of New Zealand. It's not doing much good lying on my desk, so I might as well share it with you. Once more, I have preferred accuracy of translation to elegant English. Nevertheless, some of the terms I found obscure, so I cannot guarantee absolute accuracy, but anyone who wishes to check it can find the original document here.
     The fauna of New Zealand has suffered dreadfully from human settlement, and many species have been driven to extinction. To cite just one example: in 1986 the world's largest gecko was discovered as a stuffed specimen in the Natural History of Marseilles, and was recognized as a lizard described in Maori oral tradition, which only a single person had ever claimed to have seen alive. New Zealand is a land where flightless birds take the place of mammals, for the only native land animals are two species of bats, because New Zealand has been isolated from the rest of the world since the age of dinosaurs. It even possesses a strange reptile, the tuatara, which looks like a lizard, but is really the last survivor of a group which otherwise died out with the dinosaurs. It stands to reason, therefore, that any non-flying native land mammal may well be a monotreme, like the platypus and echidna, or something more ancient and primitive. With this in mind, let us proceed to the translation.

The Beast of Gévaudan - Solved !

     Between 1764 and 1767 a huge man-eater terrorised the region surrounding the southern French town of Gévaudan, claiming between 80 and 100 lives. People, often teenagers, tended the fields bearing spears. A detachment of dragoons was sent to hunt the Beast, and. 10,000 citizens were engaged as a battue to flush it out. Several times its death was announced, but the killings kept going on. It took a number of musket balls at relatively close range. The Beast of Gévaudan has become the stuff of legend and speculation. What was it? Officially a wolf. Or perhaps some huge wolf-dog hybrid. Or a hyaena. Or even a werewolf, according to Montague Summers! But now, at last, a German zoologist, Karl-Hans Taake has examined the primary sources, and definitively identified it.

Four More Forgotten Sea Serpents

      Once again I shall continue with my program of publishing old "sea serpent" reports which had evaded the attention of earlier researchers, such as Oudemans, Gould, and the redoubtable Heuvelmans. As before, my sources are the old Australian newspapers digitalised by the Australian National Library under the title of Trove. No doubt, as more and more nations digitalise their newspapers, more and more incidents will come to light, if other researchers take the time to unearth them.

In a Dark Hut With a Mystery Monster

     Crytozoological references can turn up in all sorts of odd places, and since these publications are likely to have vanished from public memory, it is important that the stories be filed in a central registry - like this one. Readers of this blog with long memories may recall that one such story appeared in the august pages of the National Geographic. Now I have just discovered another one in the May 1915 issue of my favourite magazine, The Wide World which, if you are interested, can be read or downloaded here.

Forgotten Sea Serpents of 1888 - 1889

     Another month, so let's continue with the task of documenting nineteenth century sea serpent sightings which managed to avoid the gaze of all major researchers, such as Oudemans, Gould, and Heuvelmans, but which serendipitously turned up in obscure Australian newspapers, frequently long after the event. In this post we shall concentrate on the years 1888 and 1889.

The Georgetown Sea Serpent, 1888

     Did a sea serpent turn up in Georgetown Harbour in 1888? On page 573 of The Great Sea-Serpent (1892), A. C. Oudemans features a list of hoaxes, culminating at the bottom of the page with:

The sea-serpent is distinctly seen in Georgetown Harbour, on the 20th. of August, 1888, sleeping on the surface, &c. - Chambers' Journal, 1888, Nov. 24. - (R. P. G.)

    The three last initials stand for Mr. R. P. Greg, who provided him with his whole collection of clippings. But why was it classified as a hoax? Did he know something he wasn't telling?

The Mongolian Wild Man's Last Stand

     One reason for taking cryptozoology seriously is the possibility that a significant species is going extinct before science has even established its existence. Thus, throughout the boreal forests of Russia, as far as Siberia, legends abound of primates apparently similar to the North American bigfoot. However, if the legends are correct, a wide tract of Central Asia also harbours isolated pockets of a different type of primate: slightly smaller, slightly more social, slightly more manlike (but only slightly). Such, for example, are the almasties of the Caucasus, and possibly the bar manu of Chitral. Peasants still claim to see them in Tajikistan. In Mongolia the term is almas (singular; it is not the plural of "alma"), and the leading researcher used to be Professor Yöngsiyebü-Biambyn Rinchen of Ulaan Baatar (1905 - 1977). The Mongolian alphabets are different to ours, so his surname has also been transliterated as "Rincen" and "Rinčen", and his initial as "P" and "B".
     In any case, in 1964 Prof Rinchen wrote a paper for the Italian journal, Genus in which he claimed that almas were then restricted to an area of 1,000 square kilometres [380 square miles] in his country.

Forgotten Sea Serpents, 1880 - 1886

     I am back from America now, so I might as well get back to work. Just over a month ago I recorded four forgotten sea serpent reports from 1879. This time I shall introduce three incidents from the years 1880, 1885, and 1886 respectively. Once again, please note that these are new cases ie reports which have apparently never been discovered by earlier researchers, but which were picked up by various Australian newspapers from overseas sources. Presumably there are a lot of forgotten cases "out there" in local newspapers in all corners of the world.

Sea Serpents Galore! (1869 to 1875)

     Once more we venture into sea serpent territory. As I have mentioned before, the digitalised copies of old Australian newspapers contain articles on alleged sea serpents reported from other parts of the world, which have apparently remained unknown to researchers to this present day. I hope, therefore, that serious researchers are bookmarking this site, because this latest installment contains three accounts: two from the New England area of the US, and one from Africa.

Bigfoot in the Andes?

     It is now time for another venture into translation and bigfootery. The author of the following essay, written in 1963, was a journalist for El Tribuno, the newspaper of the province of Salta, tucked into the far northwest corner of Argentina. It thus includes the foothills of the Andes, although he cites legends from farther afield. Readers will no doubt be aware that bigfoot-type rumours are not unknown in South America, and the author apparently accepts this identity. Just the same, the description of the animal is extremely limited. All that one can say is that one would expect the average peasant to be able to recognize a bear, even an unknown species. Also, the behaviour of running away with its hands clutched to its head doesn't sound too ursine to me!
     I apologize in advance for the text. The author's form of literary Spanish tends to convert to a rather stilted English, but I have chosen to sacrifice style in favour of accuracy. Even in regard to the latter, problems arise. Firstly, my Spanish is only passable. Secondly, every word in a language bears a variety of meanings and connotations which do not transfer exactly into a second language. Thirdly, this essay contains a number of dialectal terms and slang absent from even the best dictionaries. Nevertheless, though I am prepared to accept criticism of specific words and phrases, I believe the overall meaning of the text has been preserved.

The Lake Minnetonka Monster

This is a story 'bout Minnie the Monster.

     Sorry! I couldn't resist that. Readers of my generation will recognize a parody of a popular song. In any case, one of the strange mysteries of cryptozoology is how certain lakes gain a reputation as being the habitation of a monster, which only reappear at very long intervals. Take Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, for example. It's adjacent to the huge St. Paul-Minneapolis conurbium, for heaven's sake! - hardly the site you'd predict for a self-respecting monster to hide. I know the Wikipedia says that a big sturgeon called Lou is supposed to dwell there, but this is small fry. I'm talking about Minnie, and she's big!

Giant Ape Attacks Hunters in Guatemala

     There! That headline should have caught your attention. This month I have decided to take a break from my reviews of historic sea serpents, and go back to translations of bigfootery. In 1962 the International Committee for the Study of Human-like Hairy Bipeds was formed, and for the next few years they published articles in the Italian population journal, Genus. Imagine my chagrin to discover that it was no longer held in the reference library where I had read it in my youth! Not to worry; it turned out to be published online by JSTOR, and one could download six free articles every month.
     Some papers are in English, and you can even read Ivan Sanderson's original description of the Minnesota Iceman. The whole of volume 21 for 1965 - more than 400 pages - is given over the discussions of "abominable snowmen" in various parts of Asia. Unfortunately, the whole of it is in Italian, a language with which I am unfamiliar. Since it will take a while to learn the language, anyone who wishes to undertake the task is welcome to be a guest on this blog. In the meantime, I feel I owe it to the world to translate the Spanish and French articles, commencing with this short article.

The "Dimboola" Sea Serpent, 1913

     Dimboola is a town in Victoria, Australia. It is also the name of a play written in 1969 and a movie based on it, and filmed on location, in 1979, both of which depict the inhabitants as hicks. However, it was also the name of a steamship plying its trade between the southern capitals of the nation in 1913. The fat hit the fire on 20 May when it docked at Fremantle, W.A., and the skipper announced to the world the sea serpent he, the crew, and its passengers saw in the Great Australian Bight. Suddenly, the news was all over the country. You will find 144 separate references to it over the next three weeks. But none of this appears to have leaked out into the rest of the world, or to any of the sharp eyed researchers outside. You won't find this story anywhere else. It has been completely forgotten.

The Monster of Crescent Lake, Oregon

     "Cressie" is the monster of Crescent Lake - in Labrador.  But North America alone possesses nine other lakes with that name. (There are also sixteen Round Lakes and five Square Lakes. Do you get the impression that some name-givers are not terribly imaginative?) Do any of the other nine possess a Cressie? Here is a story which apparently went around the world, because I found it in a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia: the Express and Telegraph of Saturday 5 November 1910, at page 4.

The Monster of the Everglades, 1901

     Since the 1980s, Florida has been infested with an invasive species, the Burmese python (Python bivattatus), and early this century someone discovered a green anaconda, the largest snake in the world, there. But what about the old days? Here is a report which appears to have gone around the world, because I discovered it in an Australian newspaper, the Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW), Tuesday 15 April 1902, on page 5, but it seems to originally appeared in the New York Times, 30 November or 1st December 1901.

Sea Serpents Galore ! (1850 - 1869)

     Once more I enter the lists to rescue reports of sea serpents which earlier researchers had missed. Again, my method has been to trawl through Trove for reports picked up by Australian newspapers of overseas encounters. Needless to say, this "churnalism" had its problems, notably the fact that the story may have been old by the time it was received, or published, in this country.

Sea Serpents Galore! (1834 to 1849)

      In the last two months I copied forgotten 19th century sea serpent reports for Australia and New Zealand, so in the new year I shall start on the rest of the world. Two avenues existed by which the reports turned up in Australian newspapers. The first was that a ship's voyage actually terminated in the country, most commonly Melbourne, at which point the captain came out and told the local journalists what had been seen in another part of the world. The second was when an Australian newspaper - often a small regional one - picked up a story doing the rounds in the outer world. Often this was in turn picked up and did the rounds of other regional newspapers. In such cases, it has not always been possible to determine when the original event occurred.

    In any case, my modus operandi has been the same as before: first I would do a word search for "sea serpent" on Trove. If an account was discovered which did not appear in Heuvelmans' book, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, it was assumed to have been overlooked by earlier investigators, and therefore worthy of being put on the net. Just the same, I have rejected ones so silly they were obviously hoaxes, and some which appear to have been intended as fictional short stories. Nevertheless, a few rather questionable ones have been retained. With all this in mind, let us start.

Sea Serpents Galore! (New Zealand, 19th Century)

     In my last post I said that I was in the process of searching the digitalised versions of old Australian newspapers for sea serpent reports which may have missed the eyes of earlier investigators. In other words, I have checked to see whether they were recorded in Bernard Heuvelmans' tome, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents. Last month I dealt with Australian sea serpents, but our neighbours across the Tasman also came in for their share of reports. It would have been great if a similar exercise were performed in New Zealand, because some of these accounts are short on detail, to say the least. At any rate, please pay heed, because these stories are NEW.

Sea Serpents Galore! (Australia, 19th Century)

     Take note! Most of what you are about to read in this post, and in those of the following months, have never been presented in any significant publication as a collection. In other words, they are new: unknown to the general public.
     I have been going through the digitalised Australian newspapers on Trove for the nineteenth century, and my system has been simple. I just used the advanced search option to look for the phrase, "sea serpent" for a particular year. Frequently what turned up was a flippant remark, and all too often a reference to a horse or a ship of that name. (I regret to say that the latter was never involved in an encounter. I would have loved to have read the headline, SEA SERPENT SEES SEA SERPENT.) Nevertheless, quite frequently I was met with a report of an actual (alleged) sea serpent sighting, which typically appeared in a large number of periodicals over a considerable period of time. If the story could not be found in Bernard Heuvelmans' comprehensive tome, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (1968), I have assumed it is unknown, and have copied what appears to be the earliest and/or most detailed account. I only wish the journalists had been prepared to ask questions. As if was, they normally recorded merely the information provided by the witness, without any attempt to obtain more details. But at least they took the subject seriously - which is more than they do today. In any case, this month's post shall deal with the Australian encounters. At this period, it is important to note, most trade between the Australian colonies was by sea.