Picture of the day

Great example of how real animals can appear to be something else. Here are otters that when they swim together looks like a lake or sea monster.

Cryptomundo

Baby Bigfoot?

So I'm about to set off for a weekend in the wilderness. And when I say wilderness I mean peeing in the woods and no internet. So nothing is like the great outdoors, and in the outdoors there is always a chance to run into bigfoot or poison ivy.

Here is a new video from Wisconsin, in which the person thinks he captured a baby bigfoot on a thermal camera.

Blogsquatcher---The videographer had this to say:

A baby bigfoot is seen here on the ground looking up to a branch in a tree just before it leaps up and swings through the tree's.
A photo later of a person 5 foot 6 inches, has shown this baby bigfoot is about 4 foot tall.

I don't know how the videographer knows it's a bigfoot. Maybe he'll answer some polite questions. I can see what looks like legs as it runs away, but it's so briefly on screen, I really am not sure what I see.

UPDATE: The videographer, who goes by the screen name replures, replied to my questions this way:

I was standing on the ground, and fell to my knee to start recording.
The reason I say bigfoot, is because it has the profile of a humanoid just before it leaps for the trees, and the reason I know its not a human is because of its speed and stealth through the branches.
I did go back to the spot with a person, and had the person stand where this thing was, the person stands 5 foot 6 inches tall, from this estimate the critter is 4 foot tall.

I would have to argue that I'm not so sure it has a profile of a humanoid in that brief moment before it leaps out of frame (which I cannot, unfortunately, get the YouTube file to freeze on..). I see something that looks a bit like a tail shooting off to the left. I also see what looks like ears up on the top. If I were going to guess, I'd say it was a fox or some other canid. It doesn't look like it's going up into a tree to me, either. It looks like the shot is at an angle down toward the ground, and the animal simply trots away.

Personally I think it is a cat.

More of Champ

Some enhanced videos.

Media now picking up the Champ story

Champ mystery grows

Burlington Free Press---A cell-phone video of a “creature” that appears to be swimming in Lake Champlain near Oakledge Park in Burlington last weekend is sparking renewed discussion about “Champ,” the lake’s legendary monster. The nearly 2-minute video, taken at sunrise Sunday by Burlington resident Eric Olsen, 37, shows an object moving across the mouth of the small cove and beach area at the park.

At several points during the video, the object appears to raise its “head” a foot or more above the water’s surface. At other times a portion of what appears to be a torso, several feet in length, also can been seen.

“I was just filming the water when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move, and I turned toward it and tried to zoom in on it,” said Olsen, a Web site developer and musician.

Glad to see that some attention is being drawn to this video. I will still say that it is some sort of quadruped, probably a deer. But here some some screen shots from the video.


When you compare these photos with the famous 1977 photo of Champ it does look a little similar.

Personally I always thought this photo was fake.

New video of Champ

I have a shit load going on this week so not to many posts. I don't want to hear any bitching. But this is fresh footage shot over the weekend in Vermont of Champ the Lake Monster. Here is the quote from the video.

I shot this video of SOMETHING in the lake at Oakledge Park on Sunday (05/31/09) early am (0530 or so). I don’t know what the eff it is but it’s definitely not normal…Was anyone else out and about around Oakledge on Sunday just after sunrise?



Very strange video. Tough to tell if it is a hoax or not, I suppose someone could be swimming underneath the water, but is that worth it for a youtube video?

It also could be a female moose swimming across the water. It is defiantly moving on its own so it is not a log. I will try and get some zoomed in stills later.

Bigfoot real or not?

This may come as a shock to some, but I don't believe in bigfoot or the yeti. I have not seen any solid evidence that some half-man half-ape is walking around in the forest. The best evidence that this creature is in existence is through eyewitnesses. In the court of Law, eyewitness make for great evidence. However, in science it is the worst evidence.

I get into many disagreements with bigfoot believes about one case in particular. And that is the Patterson footage. Most bigfootologist (is that even a word), believe that this is the Holy Grail of bigfoot videos. They believe that this is with out a doubt the mythical beast. I think differently.

I am sure you have seen the video before. Even if you could careless about bigfoot, the video has been around long enough that you must have seen it somewhere, but just in case here it is.

So in the video you have a female bigfoot casually strolling through the woods on a Sunday afternoon.

I will admit the video does look pretty good. People like to point out the muscle movement, the long arms, and facial expressions and that's all good. But I like to focus on the man you don't see in the video, the guy holding the camera. Roger Patterson. Yes, he had a accomplice named Roger Gimlin, but he was just a pawn.

Patterson became interested in bigfoot in 1962 after reading an article in a paper about the creature. A few years later he created a movie about the Yeti. This movie was a collection of press clippings and other little things. But it didn't stop after this movie. His interested only grew.

At this point bigfoot became an obsession. He started to take loans to make more bigfoot documentaries, loans that he would never pay back.

Wiki--Some decades after the Patterson-Gimlin film's publicity, Greg Long interviewed people who described Patterson as a liar, a conman, and sometimes worse. Pat Mason, Glen Koelling, Bob Swanson and Vilma Radford claimed Patterson never repaid loans they made to him for various Bigfoot-related ventures. Radford alone had corroborative evidence: A $700 promissory note "for expenses in connection with filming of 'Bigfoot: Americas Abominable Snowman. (sic)'" Patterson agreed to repay her $850, plus 5 percent of any profits from the film. Also, records show Bob Gimlin sued DeAtley and Patterson's widow Patricia, in 1975, claiming he wasn't receiving his share of the film's proceeds. In addition, Roger Patterson's own brother-in-law, Bruce Mondor, came forward and admitted that Roger showed him how he hoaxed bigfoot tracks. No one doubted the sincerity of Patterson's belief in Bigfoot; he was consumed by the search for it.

The worst part about his documentaries was that he was faking evidence. He was creating fake footprints of the creature and passing them off as real. But no cares to bring this up when discussing the video.

And how did the famous video come about? Well this originally started back in 1957 when loggers found large footprints somewhere in the vicinity of Bluff Creek which is in Northern California. Local papers picked up the story, and Patterson decided to run with it.

In May of 1967 Patterson rented a 16mm camera to work on his new documentary. Since Patterson was a scum bag, he never returned it on time. He set out in the woods around Bluff Creek on October 20th of that year with the sole purpose of video taping bigfoot. And what do you know he found bigfoot.

Patterson and Gimlin stumble upon a female bigfoot walking around a creek bed in the afternoon. However, when interviewed later Patterson and Gimlin gave different accounts on what happened. The time of the event varied from either 1:30 or 3:30. The men were both on horsebacks, and they gave different description on how the horses reacted, and they gave different accounts on the size of the creature.

The footage was the the center piece for Patterson documentary. A documentary that was shown in movie houses and made Patterson a instant celebrity. However, Patterson's greed got the better of him, and he over sold the rights of the movie which cost him in a lengthy legal battle.

Now I strictly believe that the footage is nothing more than a man in a costume. In 1967 Phillip Morris of Morris Costume said he received a call from some who identified himself as Roger Petterson and asked to buy one of this gorilla suits. Morris thought it was nothing more than a regular sale, so he sent Patterson a suit for him to inspect. Here is Morris and and one of his gorilla suits.

I do not believe that Patterson thought this suit would fly, it looked too much like a monkey suit. So enter John Chambers. The word around Hollywood for years was that John Chambers made Patterson suit. Who is John Chambers? He is a Academy Award winner makeup artist who made the costumes for the Planet of the Ape movies. Planet of the Apes came out in 1968, so it was conceivable that the costumes could have been around since 1965.

StrangeMag---I have heard that Chambers made the Patterson suit from at least two or three different people. Common sense-the footage looks like a suit. Looking at the stuff that Chambers did-the style and all that, and then having seen the stuff on Lost in Space and just knowing that in that era he was pretty much the only game in town, it makes sense. It falls into place. Jim McPherson had heard that Chambers had built that suit and that [Chambers] himself might not even have known what the suit was built for. I think that Patterson maybe had just called him up and wanted to rent some kind of suit. Because at the time he and Dick Smith were the best guys doing that kind of stuff. And he was more of an effects-type guy than Dick Smith. Dick Smith was more of a makeup guy while Chambers was building suits and creatures and was really pretty much the only game in town in the '60s.

Is this the same suit that Patterson used?

If it was a suit, who was the man inside the suit? His name is Bob Heironimus. He admitted to being in the suit to the Washington Post.

"It's time to let this thing go," he told the paper. "I've been burdened with this for 36 years, seeing the film clip on tv numerous times. Somebody's making lots of money off this, except for me. But that's not the issue – the issue is that it's time to finally let people know the truth."

Patterson told Bob he would get paid $1000 for wearing the suit. For which Patterson never paid him.

Bigfoot, must have some pretty big feet. What I find strange about the Patterson bigfoot feet is how pearly white the soles of the feet are.
It also shows that bigfoot has no toes either. Which is strange because a few days after Patterson shot his footage a Park Ranger found tracks in the mud where the video was shot. Here is the foot print.
It looks identical to a human foot print. When you compare this to other bigfoot prints, for example Josh Gates print of the Yeti found last year it looks nothing alike.

What also stands out in the Patterson foot print is the movement of earth upwards in the middle of the print. To me this looks like someone stepped in mud while wearing something on their foot that was over sized, creating a suction in the middle when the foot tried to dislodge from the mud.

But to me the most incredible piece of evidence is Patterson luck. Thousands of people have gone in search of bigfoot and can not even come remotely close to what he caught on film. Even today with far superior technology, like trail cams, flir imaging, night vision, and even satellites. We can't even come close. And all Patterson did was say he was going to go look for bigfoot, and POOF! Bigfoot is suddenly taking stroll threw the woods.

So I do not believe that Patterson bigfoot is real at all. Patterson is the bigfoot version of Billy Meier. He was a con man that wanted to get rich off the gullibility of the public, which he did. People still worship his video, and for that I laugh.

Stuff falling from the sky

Just like Field of Dreams, built it and they will come. A few weeks ago I jokingly thought it was retarded that Kazakhstan was building a UFO embassy, but what do you know it worked!

UFO falls in Kazakhstan – witnesses

Russia Today---Residents of a western Kazakhstan town reported that they witnessed two silver objects fall from the sky on Wednesday night

“It was at about 3AM. I was standing by my tractor when the guys started shouting: ‘Look, there are some balls flying.’ They were big and sparkling with yellow, red and green,” an eyewitness told Interfax news agency over the phone.

According to the witnesses, the spherical objects were approximately 60 cm in diameter, had a silvery surface with what appeared to be a small opening. The UFOs failed to bend or dent when local residents attempted to strike them with their tools, and said the balls produced sparks when they attempted to do so.

A preliminary investigation has failed to identify the strange objects, but according to head of the local emergencies service Aleksandr Ivanov, they are most likely “fragments of a man-made aircraft.”

He also noted that the region where the two spherical objects were discovered has no history of similar incidences.

“Objects fall on the areas bordering the Russian military test range Kapustin Yar, but here it’s a rare thing. I’d say it’s a first,” he said.

The balls were found to pose no immediate threat to public health or the environment and were sent for further research to “a specialized organization.”

If you think that is weird how about a moose falling from the sky.

Sportsman Offroad---Clinton, Maine police received reports that a 500-pound moose had fallen from the sky onto Hinckley Road at 8 a.m. yesterday.

Assistant town clerk Shirley Bailey was alerted by a motorist traveling under an Interstate 95 bridge that "a moose just fell out of the sky."

Bailey said the motorist seemed excited about the find according to the WABI-TV5 news desk.

Police Chief Charles Runnels said that the panicked yearling bull probably jumped off the bridge’s guardrail and fell victim to an 18-foot drop onto the road below.

An individual with a wrecker volunteered to haul the carcass away.

Apparently in Alaska moose jump to their death all the time on one stretch of highway, so moose falling off a cliff is somewhat common.

Crytomundo---We’ve seen the highway signs that warn of falling rocks, and we’ve seen the ones that warn of moose crossing.

Now Howard Peterson of the Alaska State Troopers wonders if we need a new sign:

Watch for falling moose.

A swing-shift trooper based in Girdwood, Peterson was cruising the Seward Highway the night of Feb. 2 a couple miles north of McHugh Creek when something big and black fell from the sky, landing about 20 feet from his car.

“Falling rock!” he thought, ready to steer clear if it bounced onto the highway.

When the rock didn’t roll or shatter, Peterson’s brain came up with a crazy image:

“Falling moose?”

An adult moose, wandering rocky terrain more suitable to the Dall sheep that populate it, plunged to its death from the tall cliffs that hug a highway famous for its scenery and wildlife.

The animal landed on the side of the road just a few yards in front of Peterson, who figures it fell 150 feet, maybe farther. He snapped a couple of photos and called one of the charities that salvage road kill to tell them there was a moose available at Mile 113 .

Then he started wondering what happened. Did the moose jump?

“How would you say it — moose-icide? He probably thought he was the only moose, with all those sheep around,” Peterson said.

More likely, though, something spooked the moose and it fell. It was windy that night, Peterson said, so maybe a gust startled it.

Or maybe the moose merely misstepped.

“I’m sure the moose didn’t jump,” state wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott said. “They occasionally have bad days like the rest of us. They slip and fall. Maybe he was reaching for a branch and the snow just gave way.”

In his years on the job, Sinnott has seen many moose die in many ways. He’s heard tales of them breaking through ice and drowning, jumping off railroad bridges at the sound of a train, falling off small banks. Once he saw the remains of two bulls that died together during a rutting battle when their antlers got hooked together by a single piece of barbed wire.

But a plunge from a tall cliff? Sinnott doesn’t think it happens often.

In 1995, a moose calf slipped off a cliff and fell 100 feet to its death in nearly the same spot, but flying moose remain an oddity.

As for Peterson, he’s been a trooper for five years and has seen lots of things fall from cliffs while on patrol — rocks, snow, mud, cars.

Cars? Yes, cars: “I used to work in the Valley,” he said, explanation enough.

But he always figured moose held steadfastly to the earth.

He knows better now.

“They can fly and they can land,” he said. “Just not very well.”

Spring time only means one thing, the return of the Montauk Monster

For the record I think calling this thing a monster is wrong. Just because it is ugly and we don't know what it is their is no reason that it should be branded as a monster. But anyways, this site is reporting that another strange animal that fit the description of previous animals has once again washed up on the shores of New York.

On Wednesday May 5th 2009, I was contacted by a couple that sent a message to the general e-mail box on this website claiming they think they’ve found what appears to be the Montauk Monster. Naturally, I questioned it thinking it was BS, but they seemed credible enough (after a phone conversation of course) to take an hour drive to Southhold and see it for myself up close and personal.

Upon discovery, it resembled what everyone saw last summer. This monster was located in Southold, NY on the Bay Area. For those who are unfamiliar with the area, this is the North Fork of Long Island. The beast smelled like a mix of low-tide and rotten garbage. It really smelled horrific. I couldn’t help but take numerous pictures of it and video clips.

The couple who tipped me off loaded the carcass into a garbage bag and took it home with them. We’ve been in correspondence numerous times and have agreed that for the remainder of the week, we’d keep this matter to ourselves. The remains are currently located in Southold in a cooler full of ice.

I wanted to think about the best way to expose this to the public. Since I own this medium, and have a genuine interest in the subject matter, I’d like to be the first to share this you. We did not contact any authorities as from previous experiences; the carcass has been taken from the finders or mysteriously “stolen”. If this is a genetic mishap from Plum Island, we’d like to sell the remains to an independent lab for study. It has become a race against the clock as the couple who originally found “Beastie” are diligently putting more ice into the cooler to keep the carcass fresh.

I wrote about this shit before, here and here. But go into more depth about it here.

Could it be that these are just raccoons that were washed out to sea? Maybe. But I have a feeling that we will be seeing more of these carcasses wash up around Montauk in the future.

Picture of the day: WTF

Mysterious figure ‘spotted’

Gulf Times---A mysterious figure resembling a human being was sighted on the Doha Corniche’s parking lot, according to a report published in a local Arabic daily.
The report is based on the statement of an Arab expatriate lady who said she had seen the strange figure near the Oryx statue while walking in the area.
Quoting the woman, the daily said she took a picture of it in spite of being terribly frightened.
“She was very soon surrounded by a large number of people who also attested to the fact of what she had seen . But it suddenly disappeared out of their sight when they tried to go near it,” the report added.

This picture is blowing up the internet. Personally I thin this is what Mini Me would look like if he died in a fire.

But its nothing more than an hoax. It reminds of the guy in Florida that makes the fake mermaids and crypto fish.

People from Maine Recycle snakes

The weirdest things (snake, anchor) turn up in recycling

Portland Herlad---It's nice that southern Mainers are getting into the spirit of recycling.

But you knew someone had gone too far when ecomaine, the Portland-based waste agency, issued these new recycling guidelines this week:

Newspapers – yes.

Glass bottles – yes.

Milk jugs – yes.

Snakes – no.

Someone, it seems, decided to recycle a 7-foot-long python. The snake, already dead, arrived at ecomaine's giant recycling center in Portland a couple of weeks ago, mixed in with tons of paper, glass and plastic. A couple of workers saw it on a conveyer belt just before the snake got fed into the giant sorting machine.

The workers are always on the lookout for items that don't belong, but at the time it wasn't immediately clear whether the animal was alive or dead, and snake handling isn't exactly in their job description.

"The first guy who saw it go by didn't want to grab it, so the second guy had to pull it out," said Recycling Manager John Morin.

Wait, you can't recycle snakes? There completely biodegradable. I can totally see a guy asking his wife if he could put the snake in the recyclable bin. In fact snakes in the recyclable bins in a great idea.

I think from now on I am putting live pythons in my recyclables. Why? For one, maybe a snake will swallow one of those mythical creatures that appears magically when I put out my trash. And a giant fucking snake will help stop people from stealing my recycle bin. That shit has been stolen three times in the past year. Which results in my stealing someone else's bin.

Leprechauns

I was really hoping for a good leprechaun story today, but leprechaun's aren't really in the news that often. Last time I saw them mentioned was back in August around Lake Tahoe. There is still the Leprechaun watch on this site. Which is nothing more than a web cam stuck in the middle of a meadow.

I guess you can chalk up the belief of leprechaun in the same boat as the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.

But at least this gives me a chance to repost one of the best youtube videos of all time. This is what happens when a leprechaun gets spotted in the middle of the ghetto.

Picture of the day: A Pink Dolphin

Telegraph---These are the stunning pictures of a rare pink bottlenose dolphin spotted swimming in a Louisiana lake.

The mammal was pictured by local charter boat captain Erik Rue, who has been studying the dolphin since it first surfaced in Lake Calcasieu, an inland saltwater estuary, north of the Gulf of Mexico in Southwestern USA.

Since it was spotted with its pod of normal coloured dolphins last year the animal has been wowing visitors on the lake.

Capt Rue, 42, originally saw the dolphin, which also has reddish eyes, swimming with a pod of four other dolphins, with one appearing to be its mother which never left its side.

This is pretty cool never seen a pink animal before. How bad will it suck if this dolphin is a male.

Dude in monkey suit?

Well, well, well. Another bigfoot story. This time a video. It comes from yellowtopsightings.com.
Here is what they have to say.

In late July of last year, encouraged by the flurry of sightings, myself and a friend decided to venture into the wilderness just outside Rocky Mountain National Park to try and photograph the Yellow Top Bigfoot. We brought enough sparse supplies for two nights in the woods, as well as a digital still camera and a video camera.

We initially kept to the empty wilderness, thinking seclusion would be a better bet for a sighting. But after after two days and no luck, we decided to head back to our base camp through a way which skirted closer to the border of the Park and its trail system. Early in the afternoon, we decided to rest for lunch. My friend was taking a nap when I heard noises coming from the east of me. Something was walking, but with far more bulk than a deer or elk, and faster than a bear would walk. Before I could grab the video camera, the creature had walked into a small clearing not 50 yards away from me.

The sasquatch was much smaller than I had imagined, 6 1/2 feet tall at most, but perhaps shorter. It had a conical skull and deeply recessed eyes. It’s hair was a light-colored brown, with a slight reddish hue. I could clearly see from its genitalia, which was eerily human, that it was a male. The creature made no sound as it sat beneath a tree, and stayed there, nearly motionless.

For almost five minutes (although it seemed far longer than that), I attempted to retrieve the video camera from its case without disturbing the creature. I had successfully opened the zipper, but overzealously pulled on the velcro holding the top of the case shut. The sasquatch looked quickly in my direction, realizing our presence. Knowing my cover was blown, I quickly pulled the camera out of the case and turned it on….

To be sure, it was an incredible experience - one which sparked our desire to catalog the sightings of the Yellow Top Bigfoot and collect as much evidence as possible to prove its existence. This website will be the fruits of our efforts.

The truth, dear readers, will be forthcoming

Sounds good right? Lets dig a little bit. The site is registered to Noah Sodano. Noah is a 27 year old film maker. In 2008 he created a animated movie called "Abortion Earth". If you visit Noah's site, you can see he is into making new and different types of movies. I wish I could watch them from his site, because some of them actually might look funny. But one thing jumps out at me, is the movie with the guy in the giant dog suit.

He also has a blog. The blog only has one entry, and it is about the video. Seems like Noah is trying to create a buzz about himself or about his movie. This is nothing more than a hoax.

Fish talk

Now that I am trying to get back into the swing of things, time to dive into one of my favorite topics. Strange animals, espeically strange fish. And here are two that are completely mind blowing.

First up is a fish that has eyes IN ITS HEAD! Its head is transparent and sees through its head. This is just crazy.

February 23, 2009--With a head like a fighter-plane cockpit, a Pacific barreleye fish shows off its highly sensitive, barrel-like eyes--topped by green, orblike lenses--in a picture released today but taken in 2004. The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California's central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact. The 6-inch (15-centimeter) barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) had been known since 1939--but only from mangled specimens dragged to the surface by nets.
I know some of you think that this is photo shopped. But National Geographic does not photoshop their images. That sort-of defeats the purpose of what National Geographic is trying to do.

Next up is the largest freshwater fish ever caught by rod and reel.
Telegraph---Ian Welch spent 90 minutes tussling with the giant stingray and it took 13 grown men to heave it out of the water.

This fish measured 7ft long and 7ft wide, while its long sting measured 10ft.

It has smashed the previous record of 46 stone for a huge catfish caught in 2005.

Mr Welch, a freshwater biologist, had been visiting Thailand to help with a stingray tagging programme when he landed the fish on the Maeklong River.

I guess technically the ray is a fish, but I don't really classify sharks and rays as fish. But its still a giant ass sting ray. This thing could probably kill about three Steve Irwin's.

Bigfoot news

Back in August when the Georgia frauds said they had a stuffed bigfoot costume, I posted that a Japanese team just set off for the Himalayas in search of the Yeti. Well they supposedly found a footprint. And I am calling hoax right now. This is not a footprint of a animal this is a human footprint.

Japanese team finds 'yeti footprints' in Nepal

KATHMANDU (AFP) — A team of Japanese adventurers say they have discovered footprints they believe were made by the legendary yeti said to roam the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet.

"The footprints were about 20 centimetres (eight inches) long and looked like a human's," Yoshiteru Takahashi, the leader of the Yeti Project Japan, told AFP in Kathmandu on Monday.

Takahashi was speaking after he returned with his seven-member team from their third attempt to track down the half-man-half-ape, tales of which have gripped the imaginations of Western adventurers and mountaineers for decades.

Despite spending 42 days on Dhaulagiri IV -- a 7,661-metre (25,135-foot) peak where they say they have seen traces of yetis in the past -- the team failed in their prime objective of capturing one on film.

But Takahashi said the footprints were proof enough.

"Myself and other team members have been coming to the Himalayas for years and we can recognise bear, deer, wolf and snow leopard prints and it was none of those," he said.

Lets compare the print from above to the one Josh Gates found in the Himalayas last year.

Its night and day. Not even close to the same. Gates actually captured thermal imaging footage of a large bipedal creature right before he found the print.

I hope the Japanese team is not fooling anybody. This is obvious a human footprint. Probably someone had to take a leak in the middle of the night, and couldn't find their boots.

Who done it in Michigan

There has been reports of large cats in Michigan for some time now. The obvious guess is that we are seeing a rebouding cougar population. YES!
(clicky to enlarge)
But here is a recent story about a attack on a horse that people are not sure if it was done by a cougar or not. More likely is was.If it wasn't a cougar, what was it?

900-pound horse mauling a mystery

Freep.com--It's a wildlife whodunit.

Is there a wild cougar roaming rural Jackson County, attacking livestock and spooking residents? Or is it just imaginations running wild?

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources insists it was not a cougar that recently mauled a 900-pound horse in Rives Township near Jackson.

But the veterinarian who saved the horse's life, the owner of the stables where he was boarded and the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy say they're certain the predator was a cougar, also known as a North American mountain lion.

The attack has added fuel to a long-running debate between the state, which says the last known wild cougar was seen in the state in 1906, and naturalists who say that cougars appear to have established a small but wide-ranging population in Michigan again.

As proof, they point to hundreds of sightings from almost every county and both peninsulas in recent years. Now they're tracking reports on Web sites complete with videos of large cats that certainly look like cougars. So convinced is the National Park Service that they posted warning signs at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore after a volunteer said she was stalked by a big cat.

In Jackson County, the mauled horse survived, but the Sept. 16 incident follows by three years the killing of another horse in a nearby township.

DNR spokeswoman Mary Detloff said DNR biologists and cougar experts analyzed photos of the injured horse. "We do not believe this was a cougar attack," she said. "We don't know what it is from."

The Jackson County veterinarian who treated the animal disagrees.

"Those are large claw wounds and obviously feline in nature and done by a very large cat -- certainly not a house cat and much larger than a bobcat," said Dr. Robert Sray. "I am certain, based on 40 years of treating animals, that this was done by a cougar."

Pat Rusz, director of wildlife programs for the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, contends the DNR has long been stonewalling on the existence of cougars in Michigan.

"There is no doubt this was done by a cougar who jumped on the animal's back and sliced it open on the side," Rusz said. "We have a small but viable breeding population of cougars in Michigan."

Its probably a cougar, but this gives me a chance to post the Gable film about the Michigan Dogman. Now I would never post anything that I thought was a hoax, unless I thought it was a hoax and was calling it out. But I think this is a hoax. To the best of my knowledge nothing has come out recently saying that this video is a fake, but doing research on it a while back on the origins of the video, it did seem to appear from a production company.

That being said, take it for some entertainment value. I like it because it has a Blair Witch Project feel to it. The deal behind the video is that a 8mm film was found at a garage sale back in 2007. On the film it starts off by showing what appears to be a home video. You will see someone chopping wood, and doing other things. Then it will cut to a scene of driving through the woods, until they spot something from the distance. Then you can watch it and see what happens. Like I said I think its fake, but its a cool video.

The Gable Film of the Michigan Dogman


Here are a couple stills.

Another strange animal washes up on shore.

Well this fellow washed up on shore in New London Connecitcut, and has no been identified.

Mysterious Creature Spotted In New London

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- Something odd washed ashore in New London this weekend and people are not quite sure what it is.

Some people think the carcass it that of a pig, some believe it is a sea turtle while others suspect it to be a raccoon.

Bobbette Clapsadle was walking along the beach with her family when she made the gross discovery. Her daughter snapped pictures.

"We weren't sure at first. It was kind of covered in grass (and) was in the weed line. My son saw it first and was like,'Look at that!' My husband walked over and said, 'Oh my God,'" Clapsadle said.

Visitors to Ocean Beach were equally perplexed.

By Monday, the creature’s body was nowhere to be found

(more pics inside the article)

Hmmm...Where have we seen this before. Maybe the Montauk Monster.
Now New London and Montauk are not far apart. We now have two strange unidentified animals that washed up on shores miles apart with in a few months of each other.
Funny how they said that the carcasses disappeared, wouldn't they want to identified what it is? I have mentioned this before, but now it is more than a coincident what lies between both locations is the Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center.

I have also hinted in the past about Montauk dark past, maybe its time to enlighten.

EDIT

I forgot about the one that washed up on Rocky Point too a few weeks ago.

Picture of the day

Why does all the strange farm animals always pop in China, just like the manbearpig.

Here is a duck with chicken feet. Could it be that it was just born without the webbing between the toes?


source

WTF is this?

Monster Could be Lurking in Connecticut Lake

NBC -- Is there a mysterious creature living in a West Hartford, Connecticut reservoir?

Barbara Blanchfield was taking a few snapshots last Friday when something took her by surprise.

The photos she took depict something just below the surface of the water that appears to have spikes.

"When I saw the tail part of it, which looked ancient the way the spikes are, I just said, "Oh my God, I think I got something here," she said.

Blanchfield showed the photos to officials with the Metropolitan District Commission, who are now working with their wildlife and patrol department to determine what is in the water.

Officials said the reservoir does not hold drinking water, so there is no cause for concern about contamination.



Interesting photos and video. My first thought was this looks like the Van Lake monster video.

I was never to sure of the authenticity of the Van Lake footage, but it sort of looks the same.

I really find it hard to believe that there is something cryptid living in a Connecticut reservoir. I think its more likely to be a couple things. First maybe a escape crocodile. There has been plenty of rogue gators on the loose this summer, why not a croc.

This could be a huge alligator snapping turtle. Back about 20 years ago I was fishing in a small pond in New York, where I saw the largest snapping turtle in my life. It was the size of a giant sea turtle and it scared the bejesus out of me, since it was floating in some duck weed about ten feet from me. Luckily for me, he freaked out too, and took off.

But my gut is leaning more towards a falling tree or stump. Trees that sink to the bottom occasionally resurface, and the years of being on the lake bottom will give branches and roots a smooth surface. Currents can push them along, and give them the appearance of swimming.

Possible shark caught in Lake Michigan?

I have shown in the past that there are some freshwater sharks. But now this report out of Michigan.

Boater claims he found shark in West Bay
TRAVERSE CITY -- A large orange fishing bobber drifted across West Grand Traverse Bay, and Rich Fasi decided to scoop it up before the attached line tangled in someone's motor.

Fasi was out for a cruise on his boat Wednesday evening, and noticed something suspended below the baseball-sized bobber as he approached. He thought someone had set up a unique salmon rig, but a shock awaited him as he pulled in the line.

"I could see a fish down there about three feet down, but the last thing I expected was a shark on the end," Fasi said.

There aren't any witnesses, but Fasi, of Traverse City, said he pulled the roughly 2-foot shark from the bay about 100 yards west of Clinch Park Marina at about 5 p.m. He found the shark in about 25 feet of water, he said. It was dead, but wasn't frozen.

"I could wiggle its tail, pry open its mouth, look at its teeth," he said. "It didn't look like it had any decomposition."

Fasi threw the fish in his freezer and called the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Cadillac-based DNR fisheries biologist Mark Tonello said the incident likely is a "big fat hoax."

I am not buying this one bit. This is up there with the bigfoot hoax. There are sharks in the Mississippi River, big ones too. There have been bull sharks reports as far North as Illinois, but not black tip reef sharks. There was once a report of a shark attack in Lake Michigan in 1955, but I have found no evidence of this. No way, another scum bag hoaxer.

Also in other shark related news there has been more possible sightings of white sharks off the coast of the UK. story