Monsters and Myths

The legend of the ‘Honey Island Swamp Monster’ born in the swamp lands of Louisiana has been debated for years. Since the legend began with the first sighting in 1974  reported by Harlan Ford and Ray Mills until present day many crypto zoologist and bigfoot believers have investigated and reported on the legend. There have been alot of varying opinions as to if this was an elaborate hoax or an authentic sighting of a bigfoot like creature. Some think that the original reports and sightings by Mr Ford may have been accurate , although through out the years others created hoax footprints and sightings trying to expand on the legend.

M.K. Davis did some research into the legend and found some interesting facts and items which lean to the honey island swap monster being a hoax. These findings are thought by some to simply prove that there were some people over the years who tried to profit or expand on the legend by means of a hoax , but does not prove that the orginal sightings and reports by Mr Ford  and indeed fabricated.

A Louisiana Hoax

M. K. Davis’s presentation…dealt with the “Honey Island Swamp Monster,” a Bigfoot-like denizen of Louisiana reported by an air traffic controller in the late 1970s and featured in the television series In Search Of… featuring Leonard Nimoy. Davis had an unbelievable stroke of luck. He found a man who had recovered one of the shoes used to perpetrate the hoax-for a hoax the story seems to have been. Davis showed footage of the shoe with a three-toed claw attached to the bottom, which was presumably used to fake the tracks. The other shoe is unaccounted for, but the Honey Island Swamp Monster seems to have been exposed once and for all. Bearing in mind [Loren] Coleman’s earlier remarks, there may have been sightings of some anomalous creature in the beginning, but the only available evidence points to fraud.

Whether the legend was a hoax from the beginning or not we may never know. But like many other cryptozoological creatures the legend of the “Honey Island Swamp Monster” lives on.

The Search Never Ends - Monsters and Myths

Does a hulking, 7-foot-tall, ape-like creature roam the rugged mountains and forests of Northern New York and Vermont?

It may seem far-fetched, but accounts can be traced back to Indian lore and even the logs of Samuel de Champlain.

While the lake creature Champ remains the region’s best known ‘monster,’ in recent years, two nationally televised documentaries — on the History and Discovery Channels — have featured entire segments on Bigfoot sightings in upstate New York and Vermont.

The most recent, “Monster Quest,” in 2008, chronicled numerous sightings of a large, hairy, ape-like creature on both sides of Lake Champlain.

‘CANNIBALISTIC MAN’
In the Pacific Northwest, there’s Bigfoot or the legendary Sasquatch; in the Himalayas, there’s the yeti or abominable snowman.

The Algonquin on the western shores of Lake Champlain told of seeing the windigo or “giant cannibalistic man” who, according to legend, roamed the countryside. One modern-day Native American account of the windigo describes it as “a giant thing, swift “¦ and covered with hair, and has eyes like two pools of blood. And there’s this smell, like rotting meat.” This description is similar to Bigfoot reports today.

The Iroquois have a similar oral history of flesh-eating stone giants who possessed powerful physiques.

Across the border in Quebec, the Algonquin-speaking Attikamekw called these creatures Kokotshe.

In his ship’s log chronicling his voyage of discovery on the St. Lawrence River 1604, Champlain wrote how numerous Indian tribes in the region had told eerie stories of a giant, hairy man-beast that was known to the natives as “the Gougou.” Champlain wrote that so many of the tribes recounted such stories that he believed there must be some truth to the tales.

“And what makes me believe what they say, is the fact that all the savages in general fear it, and tell such strange stories of it.”

In northern Vermont, Abenaki traditions tell of a huge, hairy, man-like creature known as the Forest Wanderer who would leave giant, human-like footprints behind. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, many early Vermont settlers in Essex and Orleans counties told of encountering a mysterious bear that moved swiftly through the woods on two legs, always managing to elude capture.

Vermont historian Marion Daley describes this creature in her book, “History of Lemington,” noting its ability to move about in a swift, ghost-like manner bordering on the supernatural.

A CLEVER RUSE?
More than 100 sightings in upstate New York state have been recorded.

In August of 1869, a “wild-man” scare took place at Sucker Brook near Ogdensburg. The creature was never found. In 1883, the Plattsburgh Sentinel reported on the “great scare at Port Henry” involving a “wild man who scares women and frightens the children.” Some witnesses said it appeared to be wearing “an overcoat.” Could this have been fur or hair that was mistaken for clothing by those trying to make sense of what they were seeing? Once again, the creature eluded search parties.

Another cluster of sightings occurred during autumn of 1921, when residents living near Malone organized hunting parties to track down a “wild man.” Most of the reports were centered near the hamlet of Skerry, 12 miles to the southwest. A reporter for the Dunkirk Evening Observer described the tension in the area: “Women sleep ill o’ nights, children are kept from school, or guarded by adults on their way there and back, lonely females cower behind locked doors and men wag their heads in gossip as they ponder over the puzzle of the wild man”¦”

Skeptical authorities in Franklin County considered the story unlikely, instead opting to believe that it was “a clever ruse effected by bootleggers to take advantage of the absence of officers,” so they could more easily smuggle liquor across the Canadian border with ease.

‘SCARY AS HELL’
In the summer of 1969, an ape-like creature was spotted near a cabin at the Pumphouse campsite at Long Lake. The encounter took place at about 11 p.m., as a small oil lantern illuminated the inside of the cabin. One of the men reported afterwards that his wife told him she could see a raccoon staring at them through the window at the back of the cabin. Rolling over in bed, he glanced up and saw a large cone-shaped head and a dark face that appeared to be pushed in. Brownish fur encapsulated the face.

The next morning at a nearby stream, the couple found what appeared to be a heel print 8 inches wide.

Another sighting took place near Saranac Lake on a tranquil summer’s evening in August of 1996. Two men fishing in a boat on Pine Lake near dusk spotted what they took to be a black bear. Suddenly the “bear” stood up and walked off, leaving the men shaken. One of the witnesses said it stood 7 feet tall and had dark-brown hair.

“Its face was hairy yet fleshy around the upper cheeks. Its eyes were dark in color but clearly visible and had a brightness about them.”

The creature stared at the pair for 10 seconds before tilting its head then darting into the woods with the agility of a cat.

Said one of the men: “The whole experience was very, very upsetting. Although I can honestly say it did not attempt to threaten us “¦ it was scary as hell. That night I did not sleep one wink.”

Source: pressrepublican

More evidence of the abominable snowman (more politely known as a Yeti or Bigfoot) has been uncovered in Russia’s Kemerovo Region in southwestern Siberia, the Moscow newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reports.

Vladimir Makut, a local administrator in the Tashtagol district of Kemerovo Region, noted in an interview with the newspaper that sightings of unusual large creatures in the area date far back into Soviet times, when the area contained several prison colonies. The creatures inspired such dread that the prisoners sometimes refused to go out to work. The local native people, the Shors, also have numerous legends about wild “dark people.” Specialists note, however, that, historically, more yeti activity has been recorded in neighboring regions. The Soviet Academy of Sciences even set up a commission to investigate those reports in 1958. It concluded that Altai, which Tashtagol borders on, is a breeding ground for the creature. There the yetis have been sighted in pairs and yeti children have been seen.

Dozens of sightings near Azas Cave have been recorded, all during the winter months. The area is accessible only with local guides and the right equipment, but it is visited by campers and personnel from the coal mining industry. The latest series of reports began last November. Igor Burtsev, director of the International Center for Hominology, noted that the situation is unusual in that reports have come from locals. Local inhabitants rarely report such sightings, even when they are aware of the presence of the mysterious creatures. There were no actually encounters with the yetis, but numerous tracks were found. They were described as similar to bear tracks, but with distinct toes.

Makut organized an expedition to the cave and, after finding tracks himself, called in Burtsev and several regional officials. They also confirmed the presence of footprints in the cave, but declined to enter the cave farther than 30 yards, noting the dangerous conditions. The yetis themselves eluded the explorers.

Komsomolskaya Pravda noted that there have been other recent developments in hominology. Last month, a film crew from Russia’s Channel One television discovered enormous hominid footprints in Abkhazia and interviewed a local resident who stated that she was the granddaughter of a domesticated yeti. According to the woman, Raisa Sabekia, her grandmother, named Zana, was captured by hunters and given as a gift to her grandfather, who was a local nobleman. He eventually taught her to speak. Abkhazia is another region known for the presence of yeti. An Academy of Sciences expedition searched for the creature in that region in Soviet times as well.

Source: mosnews

Beneath the cold, isolated waters of north western Canada a fifty foot swimming monster is said to lurk. The stories from North West Canada’s Lake Okanagan date back to the earliest First Nation peoples, who lived in fear of this terrifying creature of the lake that became known as ‘Ogopogo’.

According to accounts of this ominous creature, it has a large snake like body, large eyes and can move at high speeds. Sightings of this lake creature are so common that it has been seen more times than Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster, making Ogopogo the world’s most documented lake creature.

With new, recent photographic evidence and an array of high technology, MonsterQuest will launch one of the first major expeditions to this lake. A helicopter outfitted with a thermal camera will scan the lake for signs of the creature while a dive team stands ready to jump into the hazardous waters, ready to capture the necessary evidence.

“On tonight’s MonsterQuest, the results of the baby Ogopogo body find will be revealed.”

The beast lives on - that is the opinion of Falmouth man John Ostins, who is the latest in a line of people claiming to have seen the town’s mysterious ” beast.”

Mr Ostins, who is studying boat building at Falmouth Marine School, contacted the Packet to say that, at the risk of sounding “daft” he had also seen something resembling the unusual creature first revealed on the Packet website thepacket.co.uk and featured in the paper that week.

At the time Falmouth Watersports Centre worker Sam Bradbury claimed to have seen an animal that resembled a cross between a lion, a fox and a kangaroo.

Mr Ostins, from Tregenver Road, claims to have seen the beast in the second week of January - but has been too embarrassed to come forward until now.

He had been walking his dog Oggy on the coastal path between Swanpool and Maenporth at around 5pm when his pet started barking loudly ahead before going “absolutely ballistic” with his shackles up.

Mr Ostins said: “Just as we rounded the bend in the path I briefly saw up ahead a weird looking animal hopping into a gorse bush. I didn’t see it for long, but I can say that it was jet black with a long, bushy tail like I’d imagine a racoon to have, and bigger in size than my Labrador. It also seemed to be moving on two hind legs.”

Oggy went to the bush where the creature rushed to but, unusually, appeared reluctant to go in and look for the animal, which then disappeared.

“It sounds so far fetched and unbelievable that for weeks I kind of made myself believe that it was a dog or something and I completely dismissed it, until I saw the articles in the paper,” added Mr Ostins.

Source: falmouth packet

The mystery of the “Waveney Monster” - an enormous beast more than 10 foot long and weighing more than a tonne - has been recalled by a former coypu trapper.

Noel Rochford, who was a member of Coypu Control, was able to explain the background to a “monster” hunt more than 25 years ago.

He and fellow trapper, Colin Denny, of Beccles, had seen the “monster” a couple of years earlier.

When officials at the Ministry of Agriculture refused to take their sighting seriously, they decided to ask the public for help to identify the mysterious creature.

It became such a sensation that Broads holiday company Hoseasons offered a £10,000 prize or reward to any member of the public, who could get a close-up photograph of the creature.

And so, the hunt for the “Waveney Monster” started in earnest in March 1984, said Mr Rochford, of Burgh St Peter, near Beccles.

He had seen a large creature, possibly 10ft in length, with rough, thick fur and big eyes, come out of the water with “almost a loud snort” near the cut on the river at Burgh St Peter.

“When I told the ministry, officials just laughed and said: ‘It’s another of your jokes.’ But I’d seen it a couple of years earlier,” said Mr Rochford, who worked for the ministry’s eradication programme for almost nine years until the task was officially completed.

He was persuaded by the EDP’s photographer to look for the creature. Together with Mr Denny, they “posed” for the pictures in the coypu control craft. But Mr Rochford remains absolutely convinced that he saw a large creature. “Colin and I both saw it when we down the river towards Haddiscoe and the Burgh marshes,” he added.

“It wasn’t a seal. This thing weighed a tonne or maybe more. It was a huge thing and when the head came out of the water, it was a bit frightening. It had brackish fur like a coypu and a big shaped head. It was enormous,” said Mr Rochford, who was holding the tiller.

“It certainly wasn’t a coypu or a larger relative,” said Mr Rochford. The last wild coypu was trapped on the Ouse, near St Neots, in April 1988 - three years ahead of schedule.

Coypu escaped from a farm at East Carleton Manor in 1937 where they were being bred for their fur. They rapidly became a major threat to river and flood defences and finally, in 1981 the Ministry of Agriculture was given £2.5m for a 10-year eradication programme.

Source: edp24

They’re still not sure what to do with it, but a family living on the Grassy Narrows First Nation in northwestern Ontario has a plaster cast of a “huge” footprint from what they think is a sasquatch-like creature.

“It’s got six toes and a giant heel,” said 21-year-old Judy Fobister, whose father went out and took the imprint.

“He brought it home and he showed us,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked that there is actually something out there.”

The footprint measures about 38 centimetres long by about 15 centimetres wide and nicely fills a large pizza box, which is where the plaster cast is now safely stowed.

“The way toes are, it looks kind of weird,” Fobister said Tuesday. “They don’t look normal. They’re huge. The big toe is huge. If you put three of your middle fingers together, that’s how wide and how long the big toe is.”

Fobister said her aunt, Helen Fobister, and her grandmother, Agnes Fisher, were driving back roads of the reserve on their way to pick blueberries. They told family members that they saw a tall, slender, black creature just a few metres ahead of them.

“They said they were pretty close,” Fobister said. They said it was really tall, like about eight feet tall.”

The creature disappeared into the bush, but members of the family went back to look around. Fobister said that’s when her father found the footprint and took the plaster cast.

She says she’s grown up hearing stories about a sasquatch-like creature in the area. Now she “kind of” believes them, but would still like to see more proof that the fabled creature, which is sometimes called bigfoot, really exists.

Grassy Narrows is about 80 kilometres north of Kenora, Ont.

Source: cananda . com

THE MYSTERY of what happened to the infamous Loch Ness monster hoaxer has finally been solved.

Frank Searle lived on Loch Ness during the 1970s and became a celebrity when he claimed to be the first person in history to capture real pictures of Nessie.

His most famous photograph, which many likened to a floating tree trunk, brought Searle base. He even inspired a monster-hunter character played by Keith Allen in the 1996 Hollywood film Loch Ness, starring Ted Danson.

However, rumours soon started to emerge that his pictures were a hoax and The Loch Ness Story, a book by the BBC’s Nicholas Witchell, labelled them fakes.

After being exposed as a hoaxer, Searle’s own life became a mystery when he seemed to disappear without trace in 1983 after leaving Loch Ness.

He went missing shortly after Adrian Shine, of the Drumnadrochit-based Loch Ness Project, was injured in a petrol bomb attack following a war of words with Searle.

Suspicion fell upon Searle and friends and fellow monster hunters placed adverts in newspapers in an attempt to track him down, but he remained missing for 22 years.

But now a film crew, making a documentary on Searle, has discovered that he died a few weeks ago, aged 84, in the Lancashire town of Fleetwood.

Andrew Tullis, the film-maker behind the documentary The Man Who Captured Nessie, which is to be broadcast by Channel 4 later this year, said: “Rumours on his whereabouts ranged from treasure-hunting in Cornwall to lecturing on monsters in the United States, or even lying at the bottom of Loch Ness.

“But, during the production, a lead brought me to Fleetwood where I discovered that Searle had lived quietly for the last 18 years. And, in fact, he had died a few weeks before my arrival.

“Searle was loved and loathed in equal measure, but his place in the history of Loch Ness hoaxes is assured.”

A former paratrooper, Searle gave up his job as a greengrocer in London in 1969 to relocate to Loch Ness and set up “The Frank Searle Loch Ness Investigation”.

He produced 20 supposed images of Nessie, one of which even showed a UFO in the same shot. A dossier produced on Searle’s work convinced many that his “monsters” were really constructed from fence posts, socks, tarpaulins and, on one occasion, the cutting and pasting of a dinosaur postcard on to an image of disturbed water.

Roland Watson, a fellow Loch Ness monster hunter from Edinburgh and friend of Searle’s during his stay on Loch Ness, said: “Frank lived permanently by the north shore of Loch Ness in various tents and caravans from 1969 to 1983, whereupon he upped tent pegs and left the loch for good.

“Since that day nothing was ever heard from him. It was as if he vanished as quickly as a sight of the monster herself.”

Source: thescotsman

The Mogollon Monster is Arizona’s version of Bigfoot. It supposedly lives, as you may have guessed, along the Mogollon Rim, although it has allegedly been spotted around Prescott and in the Grand Canyon. It seems to be a shy thing, but every now and then, it tears up a campsite or takes the campers’ food.

Don Davis, a cryptozoology investigator who died in 2002, claimed that he encountered the monster at a Boy Scout camp near Payson in the 1940s. He reported:

“The creature was huge. Its eyes were deep set and hard to see, but they seemed expressionless. His face seemed pretty much devoid of hair, but there seemed to be hair along the sides of his face. His chest, shoulders and arms were massive, especially the upper arms; easily upwards of 6 inches in diameter, perhaps much, much more. I could see he was pretty hairy, but didn’t observe really how thick the body hair was. The face/head was very square; square sides and squared-up chin, like a box.”

At mogollon monster.com, you can see pictures of Mogollon Monster poop and caves, watch some videos, find links to other MM sites and read an account from a woman who said she saw the creature last Christmas near Springerville. She described it as hairy, black and about 8 feet tall.

Source: arizona republic