At the beginning of the 21st Century monsters still roam the remote, and sometimes not so remote, corners of our planet. It is our job to search for them. The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is - we believe - the largest professional, scientific and full-time organisation in the world dedicated to cryptozoology - the study of unknown animals. Since 1992 the CFZ has carried out an unparalleled programme of research and investigation all over the world. Since 2009 we have been running the increasingly popular CFZ Blog Network, and although there has been an American branch of the CFZ for over ten years now, it is only now that it has a dedicated blog.

Sunday 31 January 2016

CIA MAKES X-FILES DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE

Investigators will be delighted (I hope)!




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HUMANOIDS OF 1968

There was a wave of humanoid encounters in Canada in 1968.
It wasn't me.


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BROLLACHAN

The shapeless creature of Scottish folklore.

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BLACK SASQUATCH IN CANADA

Encounter reported in New Brunswick.

Image courtesy Lon Strickler


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BIGFOOT ENCOUNTER

Incident on the Utah/Wyoming border.



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ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 31...

1930: The research ship Dana captures an apparent leptocephalus (eel larva, literally "slim head") off Africa's Cape of Good Hope. Its size astounds examiners, measuring 6 feet 1.5 inches long. The average leptocephalus for European eels measures three inches and metamorphoses into an adult roughly one meter long, suggesting to some that the adult form of what they dub Leptocephalus giganteus might exceed 400 feet in length. Others dismiss the notion, observing that leptocephali of various species grow at different rates. The preserved specimen presently resides at Copenhagen University's Zoological Museum. No other members of its species have been found to date.


The Dana Leptocephalus

Saturday 30 January 2016

MANTIS MAN IN NEW JERSEY

Detailed report of a sighting.

Praying Mantis


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CHUPACABRA - CREATURE OF PUERTO RICO

An overview of Puerto Rico's most famous cryptid.



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FUEGIAN MONSTERS

Monsters of Tierra del Fuego.

Tierra del Fuego


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BROWNIE - THE SCOTTISH HOMESPRITE

Belief in Homesprites - being of a preternatural nature who take care of the home - was once widespread in Europe.  In Scotland, such creatures were called Brownies.  There follows a general account.

A book with details of Homesprites


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IS DOGMAN REAL?

Certain experts seem to think so.



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MOGOLLON MONSTER

This BHM has been reported since 1903.



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JAPANESE FLYING HUMANOID

One has been reported near Mount Fuji.

Mt Fuji by Shabata Zeshin (1872)


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MELDRUM AT THE GALLUP

Bigfoot expert Dr Jeff Meldrum is to visit the University of New mexico Gallup campus.

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ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 30...

2013: Scott McClean, widely known Bigfoot researcher with special emphasis on antique newspaper reports, dies at age 50 in Southern California, from cancer.


Friday 29 January 2016

DOGMAN AND WITNESS

Account of Dogman encounter.

Image courtesy Lon Strickler


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GOBLINS OF GREECE

An account of the weird Kallikatzaroi.

Chief of the Kallikatzaroi


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BIGFOOT IN EAST TEXAS

Does the Hairy One wander there?




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MAN TURNS INTO TREE

  This is one of the most bizarre stories I've encountered.

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ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 29...

1970: New Mexico's Gallup Independent newspaper reports a claim by witnesses David Chiaramonte, Robert Davis, Clifford Heronemus, and Carl Martinet of a Bigfoot sighting near Whitewater, in Grant County. The four claim a large hairy biped ran beside their car at 45 miles per hour until one of them fired gunshots at it, upon which it wisely gave up the chase.


Thursday 28 January 2016

OHIO HOWLS

Are these the howls of Bigfoot?



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STRANGE HUMANOID IN AUSTRALIA

A bizarre figure sighted in Victoria.

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WHY DO ZEBRAS HAVE STRIPES?

No, not for camouflage.



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UFO SHOT DOWN IN INDIA

What was the mysterious object shot down in Rajastan?

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SEA MONSTER NEAR TITANIC

A story from 1913.



Titanic

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ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 28...

2012: A deer hunter in his Elmore County, Alabama, tree stand hears a "yell/scream" emanating from some 60 yards away at 6:15 a.m. Seconds later, another identical vocalization sounds "off in the distance." He relates the sounds to Bigfoot and reports the incident to the GCBRO's website, adding that one year earlier, in the same vicinity, he "smelt the worst stink, smelt like a dead rotting animal," apparently circling around him three times in a counterclockwise direction.



Wednesday 27 January 2016

NATIVE AMERICAN LITTLE PEOPLE

Many Native American traditions speak of Little People.

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WHAT WAS THE MOCA VAMPIRE?

Was there a UFO connection with this strange creature of Puerto Rico?
Puerto Rico


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WHITE GIRAFFE IN TANZANIA

This unusually colored animal is well worth a look.  A photograph is provided.

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SOUNDS OF BIGFOOT

Strange sounds are reported from the woodlands.  In this article we learn of a local name for Bigfoot, the Uma.

WHAT WERE THE ANUNNAKI?

Many people have come to believe that the Anunnaki, the ancient gods of Mesopotamia (now Iraq) were extraterrestrials.  This is largely as a result of a series of books by Zecharia Sitchin, which have attained considerable popularity.

His argument is that there is a planet called Nibiru which circles our sun but has a 3600 year orbit and is somewhere out on the edge of the solar system.  From this aliens arrived 450,000 years ago and in due course created the Sumerians.  A planet called Tiamat was fragmented by a collision, forming the asteroid belt.  This event is remembered in the epic Enuma Elish.

What played into Sitchin's hands is that the Sumerians, among whom the Anunnaki flourished, were a somewhat mysterious people.  Archaeology tells us they appeared in Iraq about BC 4000. They seem to have been civilized from the start.  Their language is an isolate - as far as can be determined, it is related to no other language.  They had invented writing, in the form of the cuneiform script.  Sitchin put myths+urban civilization+unrelated language together and claimed they were created by aliens.

However, if you look closely at the myths, you will see that there is no more reason to think their gods were aliens than there is the gods of other mythologies.  The epic Enuma Elish (15th Century BC) tells that the goddess Tiamat, a sort of monster, determined to destroy the gods and Marduk, the god of Babylon, slew her, making out of her body the sky and the earth.  This epic was written in Akkadian, a Semitic language that in time supplanted Sumerian.  It looks more like sheer myth than the recollection of a planetary disaster.  

In the earlier Sumerian myth contained in the Eridu Genesis we find that the gods An, Enlil, Enki and Ninhursag created the 
Sumerians. 

With regard to these various beings, Tiamat started out as the salt water of the ocean, her consort Abzu being the fresh water of the rivers.  Her eyes, when she was slain, exuded water forming the Tigris and Euphrates while her tail became the Milky Way.  Marduk sliced her in two, making her upper part the sky and the lower part the earth.

As for the planet Nibiru, just what it signified has caused speculation.  The word means 'crossing' in Akkadian and it may have designated whatever planet was most visible at the equinox.  If it in fact spent most of its time beyond the currently known planets of the solar system, the climate would have been unendurably cold.

The chief of the Anunnaki was the god An, who was the sky.  Ki signified the earth.  This seems to be inconsistent with the notion that sky and earth were parts of the corpse of Tiamat.  Inconsistency is a feature of mythhology.  The various tales told about the Anunnaki in ancient Mesopotamia sound no more historical than the myths of other countries.  The Anunnaki were only some of the gods and in later myths were the judges of the Underworld.

Of course, there are some mysteries associated with the Sumerians, such as their provenance and the origin of their civilization.  Some historians think they are nothing more than a development of the pre-Sumerian Ubaid Culture, some  that they may have come from the Zagros Mountains in Iran.  In fact, nobody knows.  There is nothing in their myths unequivocally indicating extraterrestrial involvement.  Sitchin's knowledge of the Sumerian language has also given rise to unfavorable comment among experts.

I do not dismiss the possibiliy that aliens may have visited the earth at some time in antiquity or prehistory.  I merely feel considerable doubt that the stories of the Anunnaki are more likely to contain a reminiscence of such an event than many other mythologies.  



ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 27...

1963: A witness phones the Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office to report a Bigfoot sighting at Cold Springs, California, off the Sonora Highway. When a deputy arrives to investigate, he reports hearing "horrible screams" in the woods but sees nothing.


Tuesday 26 January 2016

OGSTON RESERVOIR CREATURE

Does English reservoir harbor a monster?

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GRAYS AND ABDUCTIONS

Do Gray Aliens exist and do they abduct?


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PARALLEL UNIVERSES

Scientists begin to take them seriously.

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UFO CHASED BY AIRCRAFT

Reported incident from Bulgaria.



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KETOS - LEGENDARY SEA MONSTER

In Greek mythology Perseus killed this creature to save Andromeda.  Stories of heroes saving maidens from serpentd or dragons are, of course, commonplace.  Whether the Ketos was based on any real creature is, of course, a matter of conjecture.



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TYNEDALE BIG CAT

A report from the year 2000.



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LAKE ELSINORE MONSTER

Account of monster reported to be in California lake.

Lake Elsinore


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BOMBALA HAIRY MAN

1912 account of a humanoid in Australia.



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SIX BEING GROUPS IN HUNGARY

Humanoid expert Albert Rosales reports a strange encounter.



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WOLFMAN SIGHTING

Eerie account of Wolfman clad in blue jeans.

WAS BIGFOOT WOUNDED?

Apparently so on the program Mountain Monsters.

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ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 26

1996: Sarah Ellen Spiers, age 18, becomes the first presumed victim of the still-unidentified "Claremont Serial Killer" when she vanishes after leaving a nightclub at the Ocean Beach Hotel in Claremont, West Australia. She apparently called a taxi from a phone booth but was absent when the cab arrived. Baffled police credit at least two more women's murders to the elusive slayer and report having no valid suspects today, 20 years after the crimes.


Monday 25 January 2016

PIXY LANE SNAKE

19th Century tale of "monstrous" reptile.



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ALIEN CEPHALOPODS

An encounter in Spain.

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TEN MOTHMAN EXPLANATIONS

Does any of these convince you?



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BIGFOOT SIGHTINGS

They were in Washington, Arizona and Illinois.  Accounts are by witnesses.
Image courtesy Lon Strickler


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HUMBER SEA SERPENT

About the year 1936 trawlermen reported a sea serpent off the North Sea coast of England.  It was named the Humber Monster, after the Humber River in northern England.  It had large terrifying eyes.  Its head was compared to that of an ostrich.


COULD DOGMEN BE BIGFOOTS?

Has there been misidentification?

Woof!


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ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 25...

2012: Bigfoot blogger Robert Lindsay reports the "first DNA-proven photo of Bigfoot ever revealed," allegedly obtained in summer 2009, when the creature approached and licked a wildlife camera in the Olympic Mountains of western Washington State. The photo offered in evidence as proof is blurred beyond recognition (at least for me), then enhanced with an unnamed artist's rendering of the presumed face. For a look at the "proof" see https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/bigfoot-news-january-25-2012/


The Olympic Mountains

Sunday 24 January 2016

MEGAFAUNA OF AMERICA

What are the large extinct (or supposedly extinct) animals of America?



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A LOOK AT THE YETI

A glance at the lore of this celebrated Hominid.



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MARULAN TIGER

Was this an out of place tiger in 1903 Australia or a mere wombat?



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GRAY CAT IN ENGLAND

What exactly was this felid of 1919. seen in Kent?



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SCREAMS AND HOWLS IN CALIFORNIA

Is it a Bigfoot?

Image courtesy Lon Strickler


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UFO ABDUCTIONS

The writer claims to have been continually abducted.

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ON THIS DAY IN WEIRD


On This Day in Weird, January 24...

2006: Jennifer Joyce Kesse, age 24, vanishes without explanation from her home in Orlando, Florida. Police searchers find her car abandoned at a nearby apartment complex. Video from a security camera captures an unknown person parking the car and walking away, but police fail to identify the individual. Despite national publicity, no further clues are found and Kesse remains missing today, as her parents mark the tenth anniversary of her disappearance. Outstanding rewards are offered for information leading to Kesse and/or to the person videotaped dropping off her car.