As anyone familiar with me knows, I have a strong interest in the paranormal and the strange, in particularly the semi-scientific field of Cryptozoology. As such, I'm going to try and use this blog to keep my intrepid readers abreast of some of the interesting news I regularly come across on sites like the excellent http://www.cryptomundo.com/ and the blog of Dr. Karl Shuker: http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/
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| An artist's rendering of the mysterious Orang Pendek |
The Orang Pendek, or "Little Man of the Forest", reportedly inhabits the wilds of Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia. While it's been reported for hundreds of years, very little physical evidence supporting its existence has been found. That may be about to change. A recent expedition to the area around Sumatra's Lake Gunung Tujuh claims to have recovered evidence of a new species of ape which seems to share the traits of the Orang Pendek. The Orang Pendek has been reported by natives, Dutch colonists, and even researchers from Western universities studying Indonesia's flora and fauna. The common traits pointed out in their descriptions are that the ape is smaller in size than an Orangutan, however much stockier and darker in color. Like the Orangutan, it's a vegetarian, and a fan of the infamously pungent Durian fruit. It also seems to have more of a tendency to manipulate the environment around it than the peaceful Orangutan, uprooting small trees for some unknown purpose. In spite of these distinctions, many traditional zoologists have insisted for years that people were just misidentifying Orangutans, which inhabit the same islands, although not the specific areas of those islands, where the Orang Pendek has been seen. After the discovery of the so-called "Hobbit" fossil on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004, there was also speculation that the Orang Pendek may actually be a relic population of these hominids, though in the opinion of myself and many traditional and non-traditional scientists that's likely not the case. As more and more travelers and experts from the West and locals have reportedly encountered the creatures, the image of the Orang Pendek has morphed from a somewhat menacing Yeti-like creature, to an undiscovered small ape (possibly a new species or sub-species of Orangutan). The researchers are being tight-lipped about their findings right now, as some of their story will be featured on the season premier of The History Channel's Finding Bigfoot, but we should know more about this cryptid very soon.
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| Iceberg? Giant Manta Ray? Undersea Alien? Who the hell knows |
Some of the most interesting cryptids are reported in remote corners of the Earth's oceans. While many cryptids reported in inland lakes like Nessie and Ogopogo have been talked about for hundreds if not thousands of years, crazy new things are being found in the ocean all the time. Case in point: the "Ningen", which may or may not be pictured above. In the 1990s, Japanese "whale research" (read: whale killing ) ships began to report sightings of a strange underwater behemoth in the waters around Antarctica. It appears to grow to the range of 60-100 feet long in the few videos where it's been captured, which would seem to indicate that the Ningen is an undiscovered whale species since nothing else in the ocean aside from Giant Squids tends to reach that size. However, due to the ovular shape of what appears to be the Ningen's head, it has been described as a "giant humanoid" by some, and wild theories about some undiscovered monster similar to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu have been bandied about regarding the Ningen. The Ningen has also been mentioned as a possible explanation for certain sightings of USOs, or "Unidentified Submarine Objects". These objects are rarely sighted in waters so far South though and in the few videos where a Ningen has been captured it looks distinctly organic in nature. Actual scholarly research into what the Ningen is has yet to be attempted, but I'd imagine it will be soon. More and more of the waters off of Antarctica are being explored every day, and it's only a matter of time before a living or dead specimen of whatever this is is recovered or at least observed in greater detail than some grainy black and white footage.
In further strange sea creature news, what exactly is the thing shown above? A friend tipped me off to this video after he came across it on Liveleak. While it apparently shows a creature that's an enigma to most people who aren't marine biologists, after some further research I discovered that it was confirmed to be a giant jellyfish known as Deepstaria reticulum that was first identified in 1966. Simply further proof that our oceans are full of miraculous species, undiscovered or otherwise.
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| Is an undiscovered Big Cat lurking around India's Western Ghats? |
While watching an episode of the BBC's Natural World series on Youtube focusing on the highland forests of India's Western Ghats, I was intrigued by reported sightings of a mystery cat dubbed the "Pogeyan" by both natives of the area and the host of the program himself, wildlife photographer Sandesh Kadur. Both Mr. Kadur and the locals were very familiar with Bengal Tigers, Asiatic Leopards, the smaller Jungle Cat and the other predatory cats of the region and they all insisted that the Pogeyan was something altogether different. The cat is described as gray to black in color, smaller than both the tiger and leopard, but the purported color scheme has led more than one skeptic to point out that they could be just have come across leopards with melanism.
I would tend to agree that a melanistic leopard is the most likely explanation there are other possibilities which aren't all that far-fetched. One possibility is that the Pogeyan is a species of Snow Leopard that's adapted to warmer climes than the Himalayas. The coloration of Snow Leopards would seem to fit with the Pogeyan, and they used to range across a much larger area of India than they do today. Another less likely but intriguing possibility is that the Pogeyan is a relic from the Pleistocene era that has died out everywhere else but still is found in the Western Ghats. Prehistoric cats from the genus Panthera, which gave rise to African and Asiatic Lions along with many other modern predatory cats, and the genus Acinonyx, which includes Cheetahs, used to be widespread in India. I would love it if the Pogeyan turned out to be something like that, but again I doubt it's the case. If it is an undiscovered cat species, the culprit would probably be something from the family of small cats that includes India's aforementioned Jungle Cat, and the Ocelots and Margays of the Western hemisphere.
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| Kangaroos and Wallabies turn up in numerous places where they aren't supposed to be. |
I first read about the phenomenon of vagrant or "phantom" Kangaroos in a book aptly dubbed Unexplained! written by Jerome Clark that I received as a birthday gift in my younger days. As you can see from the map above, many of these out of place Kangaroo sightings take place in the United States. Escapees from zoos or the private animal collections of certain wealthy eccentrics are frequently the de facto explanations for these sightings, as in the case of a few small breeding populations of Wallabies living and to some extent thriving in parts of the British Isles. A few of these populations have had the advantage of living on one of the less populated islands off the coast of mainland Britain, such as the group on the Isle of Man that started with two wildlife park escapees and now numbers around 100 wallabies, and a colony on the Irish island of Lambay that was introduced after the population at the Dublin Zoo grew too large to house there. Is it possible that similar circumstances in the US are responsible for the large number of Kangaroo sightings on this side of the pond?
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| Some of England's semi-wild Wallabies |
It's probable that a Kangaroo or Wallaby would be able to survive in many areas of the continental US, as shown by both populations living in Southern Australia and communities of introduced Wallabies in the UK these animals are capable of surviving snow and freezing temperatures. Don't be surprised if you're driving down a country road one day and you see one of these "phantoms" hopping along...
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