Goat man appears

'Goat man' spotted in mountains of northern Utah

Associated PressBy BRIAN SKOLOFF

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A man spotted dressed in a goat suit among a herd of wild goats in the mountains of northern Utah has wildlife officials worried he could be in danger as hunting season approaches. Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said Friday the person is doing nothing illegal, but he worries the so-called "goat man" is unaware of the dangers."My very first concern is the person doesn't understand the risks," Douglass said. "Who's to say what could happen." Douglass said a man hiking Sunday along Ben Lomond peak in the mountains above Ogden, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, spotted the person dressed like a goat among a herd of real goats. The person provided some blurry photographs to Douglass, who said they did not appear to have been altered.

Read more here: http://news.yahoo.com/goat-man-spotted-mountains-northern-utah-174919341.html

Not content with looking for cryptids ...people are dressing as cryptids lol

hunting the paranormal in Alaska

Investigating Alaska's paranormal a serious business -- with growth potential

Ben Anderson |

Alaska’s a big place, and that means there’s a lot of room for things to hide. We’re not talking about bears or bugs or any other critters roaming the Last Frontier, but rather the less tangible -- the unusual, the undocumented, the supernatural. Alaska has a long history with the paranormal -- from its mythic past full of unusual creatures, to its modern-day infestations with cryptic beasts like Bigfoot and the Lake Iliamna Monster, down to purported alien abductions that became fodder for Hollywood not too long ago. Some in Alaska are dedicated to tracking down and recording the paranormal in the state, even if it means overcoming skepticism and applying methodology to the paranormal.

Extract

In 2009, a person reported seeing a Bigfoot while driving in the area of a local elementary school. Desmond was curious why such an archetypically secretive creature would be in such a populated area. She said she compiled sightings from several other people, then began looking for explanations for the out-of-place rumors.

Read rest here: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/investigating-alaskas-paranormal-serious-business-growth-potential

The water cow of St Mary's Loch

St Mary’s Loch

James Hogg (1770 –  1835) wrote in the ‘The Ettrick Shepherd’ about a water cow that lived in St Mary’s Loch. The Loch  was created during the ice age and is the largest  loch in the Borders area. According to local legend it  is thought to be bottomless. It  is situated on the A708 road between Selkirk and Moffat, and is approximately 3 miles(5 kilometres)  long and  half a mile (1 kilometre)wide. The Loch rarely freezes over and may be the coldest loch in Scotland.(NB the loch is unlikely to be bottomless and it was reported to be 150 feet ( 50 meters)deep by some people)

James Hogg wrote:
. "A farmer in Bowerhope once got a breed of her, which he kept for many years until they multiplied exceedingly; and he never had any cattle thrive so well, until once, on some outrage or disrespect on the farmer's part towards them, the old dam came out of the lake one pleasant March evening and gave such a roar that all the surrounding hills shook again, upon which her progeny, nineteen in number, followed her all quietly into the loch, and were never more seen”. 

This story was repeated by James Mackinley in his Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs 1893.There is a statue of James Hogg near the Loch by a local Inn.

Was is interesting about this folktale is that the Loch sounds like so many others that are said to have lake monsters or water horses living here. All the lochs seem to be from the ice age, be very cold and rarely freeze and are deep. Could it be a creature did live in the loch and it ate the farmer’s cows? Could it be that some sort of aquatic creature has survived from the ice age in these lochs, many of which are in quite desolate and difficult to get to places? Loch Ness had no proper road until 1933(there are those who would argue its still not a very good road lol) and many of the lochs do not even have roads to them. So the mystery remains, I hope one day it will be solved if not it may be that in the future only in folklore we will learn about the mysterious beasties in the Lochs.

claims that Batutut is found.

Why the big paws? Paranormal creature hunters claim to have found Vietnam's Bigfoot

By Matt Blake

A television programme dedicated to hunting down supernatural phenomena believe they have found Vietnam's Bigfoot. Destination Truth, fronted by paranormal researcher Josh Gates, travelled to the southeast Asian peninsular in search of the legendary Batutut, a man-shaped cryptid never before seen by human eyes. Using thermal imaging equipment Gates' team trekked through the jungle in a bid to track down the fabled creature of the night.
Read more, see video: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172607/Paranormal-creature-hunters-claim-Vietnams-Bigfoot-TV-show.html#ixzz20UQOv2nh

read about the Batutut here: http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/batutut-ape-bigfoot-or-neanderthal.html

Pinatubo Monsters

Pinatubo Monsters- serpent or fish?

What were the Pinatubo Monsters that appeared in 2002?

Villagers appeal for scientists to explain 'monsters'

Filipino villagers are appealing for scientists to explain large unidentified creatures seen in the Tikis river. Five of the mysterious black creatures have been spotted in the river in Bhawen since November. They have baffled the Aeta tribe who live there. There is no account of such creatures in their oral history. Dubbed the Pinatubo Monsters, they are believed to be 7ft long and 3ft wide. Children have been ordered not to bathe in the river and fishing has also been banned in case the creatures are dangerous. They have never been seen in full form, but the elongated outlines can be seen when the wind blows over the river and ripples are made in the water. They have not produced any sound at daytime or night. Joel Serrano, a village councilman, told The Philippine Daily Inquirer: "We don't know if they are fishes or snakes or eels because they never show their heads or tails."He is also worried what effect the ban on fishing will have on the village, adding: "Frogs are our only source of protein."Villager Alfredo Banos said: "The children are afraid. When they come here to view those creatures, they wonder what those things really are. We don't have answers to their questions." Source:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050422192422/www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_494687.html

The story was reported from the Zambales region of the Philippine Island of Luzon.The  large creatures were said to be swimming in the Tikis River, near the former mining village of Buhawen. The first reported incident was on November 5, 2002,  an Aleta( local ) boy thought he saw  a floating log, when it moved, he was terrified and fled. The description he gave was that it looked like a cross between a catfish and a shark.  Then  on January 12, 2003, a group of  eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a 7 foot (just over 2 metres)long black creature approximately  3 feet(approx 1 metre)  wide, undulating silently down the river.
The local people , The Aetas, say that these creatures are unlike any eel, fish or snake that they are familiar with and unlike other rivers with monster sightings, there are no folklore tales locally of monsters in the river. However it upset the locals enough to almost force them into starvation as they would not fish in the river anymore.The fish being a staple diet.
The call for investigation persuaded  the Bureau of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources to send  Nelson Bien .According to reports he looked through a pair of binoculars at the river and saw nothing. Based on the descriptions provide by the local people he concluded that it  was most likely a school of the relatively common fish known as tilapia, that had gathered in a large group.
It seems unlikely that the locals would not recognise the local fish, nor know their habits. One of the more bizarre theories  that the creatures may be a mutation caused by the mercury  said to have been in the river from the gold mining. However if the mercury levels were that high local people who ate fish from the river would be ill ,but I couldn’t find any reports.
I wondered if it could be a species of Gnooch, a giant catfish, which has been known to eat humans. However I have been informed that the river is to fast moving for them.Does anyone know whether the creatures left or are still there?

sharp toothed fish found where they shouldn't be

Balls to that! Families stay out of popular rural lake after discovery of deadly fish 'that eats male genitals'

By James Nye

A popular Illinois lake is on guard after the discovery in its waters of the exotic pacu fish - infamous for killing men by ripping off their testicles.Families reported being wary of entering the waters of Lake Lou Yaeger after hearing that a pacu was caught by a fisherman on June 7 and that another one had been spotted two weeks later.Known in Papua New Guinea as 'The Ball Cutter', the pacu has reportedly been responsible for the deaths of two fishermen in the Pacific nation, who died from blood loss after the fish had bitten off their testicles.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170276/Balls-Families-stay-popular-rural-lake-discovery-deadly-fish-eats-male-genitals.html#ixzz207AVDqsC

S. American piranha in S.China river ‘would not let go’

Global Times

Piranhas - the voracious South American fish with a horrific reputation as man eaters -- are being blamed for attacking two residents in Liuzhou, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on Saturday, raising concerns over invasive alien species.
A Liuzhou resident, surnamed Zhang, claims to have been attacked by piranhas while bathing his pet dog along the city's Liujiang River. He said the fish bit into the palm of his hand and it only let go after he slammed the fish on the ground. He said he almost lost a chunk of flesh on his hand.
Zhang said he was shocked when he compared photos online with the attacking fish that he brought home. He said his research showed he was bitten by a species of piranha native to the Amazon River and the Paraguay River in the Southern Hemisphere.Zhang said the fish was still alive when it also bit his friend, surnamed Wu, who was teasing the fish."I assume these piranhas were dumped into the river by a tropical fish keeper, as this species can hardly survive naturally in the Liujiang River where water temperatures fall below what these fish require," Li Xinhui, a researcher at the Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, told the Global Times.

Read rest here: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/719832.shtml

why can't Nessie be found?

People often say to me Why has nothing conclusive been found at Loch Ness? There are lots of reasons. One is that although the Loch is 23 miles long, large parts of it are not viewable because of trees, bushes etc around it and some parts are not easily accessible as to do so means scrambling down very steep banks. I have put on a photo here to show that even in winter it is still not easy to view through the trees. ( It is slightly wonky as I had to stand on a slope to take it)People who have never visited the Loch often scoff that no one has yet got a decent photo but they don’t realise how difficult a task that is.
Secondly the water is pitch black once you get a few feet down. The water runs off the mountains and down the hillsides surrounding the Loch bringing with it particles of peat which are suspended in Loch , making it inky black with very poor visibility. Many a diver has come up shaken because they didn’t realise how bad visibility was and the thought that something large my be in there with you is scary. This why underwater photos are so blurry. It is also very cold and stays at a constant low temperature all year round, so prolonged time in the water is not recommended.

Exploring the Loch underwater is difficult. It is very deep (some reports say over 800 feet(266 meters) some 940feet( over 300 meters) in parts) and the sides drop away at a very steep angle. In places 50 feet( about 16 metres) from shore the loch drops to hundreds of feet deep. There are no caves in the Loch side as far as we know as the sides will be mainly granite which does not wear away into caves as limestone does. The steep Loch sides mean sonar often bounces off them giving false signals. Then there is the 25 feet(8 metres) layer of silt at the bottom of the Loch, you would not want to get stuck in that. Who knows what lurks with in it or what bones lie there?

Then there is of course money. To do a sophisticated proper investigation would cost a great deal of money. Most researchers are self financing or get small grants from their workplace. Since the 70s no one seems to have come forward to want to invest in looking for Nessie. Most researchers go up to investigate in their holidays from work, very few are able to afford to spend large amounts of time at the Loch. Steve Feltham is the only investigator that seems to be in permanent occupation theses days. There people who research the Loch fauna and flora etc but they are not monster hunters. They look at fish stocks and water quality and so forth. In the 70’s every layby and every turn in the road seemed to produce someone with binoculars and a camera watching the Loch.

Which brings us to Nessie. Nessie is seen as a joke due to all the hoaxes perpetuated over the years and very few scientists want to be involved . It can cost you your job and certainly held back some people’s careers. The fact it is seen as a hoax means many people have closed ranks and no longer report sightings and locals laugh when you ask. They don’t want to be seen as foolish. The number of times I have heard “Well I will tell you if you promise not to write it down or anything. I don’t want reporters round”. (I don’t like to tell them that being dyslexic I memorise the conversations but I don’t write them down. It is something I learned to do at meetings at work because I couldn’t write down notes fast enough. By the time I had decided how to spell something they had moved on to something else lol. These days of course I would record them or take a laptop). Though that has been a huge amount of sightings over the years , when you divide them by the number of years , it is not a lot. Nessie is quite shy.( taking the average figure of 3000 sightings since 1930s ,divided by the number of years ( 80) it is an average of about 40 a year ). If you then weed out the unlikely and definite mistaken identity you are left with about 2 unexplained sightings a year. It is not a lot is it? Then the chances of getting a decent photo are even remoter. Most people on seeing something can’t believe their eyes and by the time they have recovered enough to grab a camera ,it is often too late, the whatever it is, has gone. So the odds are against us all. That is a sample of reasons why I think nothing conclusive has never been found to support the existence or non existence of the Loch Ness creature.

The only answer is large amounts of cash and sophisticated equipment and trained people to operate it and interpret results in an all year round expedition to search the loch thoroughly. So if anyone has won the lottery and has a spare million????