Meets The Weird » Cryptozoology

North Carolina Man Comes Face To Face With Sasquatch

John D — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:03:25 +0000

Last week, Tim Peeler, a resident of Cleveland County, North Carolina, got more than he bargained for while calling coyotes at his mountain top home near Casar. Expecting coyotes to emerge from the woods, Peeler was shocked when a 10 foot tall creature with yellowish hair and a yellow beard came into view and started to approach. Peeler, yelled at the creature and was able to turn it back before he called the local authorities. In his calls to Cleveland County 911, Peeler sounds disoriented, though it is hard to tell if it is because of the shock of his sighting or from intoxication. Audio from those calls is available here. For comparison, here is an interview of Peeler from a local news report of the encounter:

While I am not sure if alcohol or another substance may have played a role in the sighting, Mr. Peeler stands by his story and asks that everyone keep an open mind. Adding some credibility to the report is the fact that there is no obvious benefit from the sighting to Mr. Peeler (in fact, saying that he was drunk and that he must have imagined the whole incident would probably be the easier course).

Bigfoot sightings are nothing new for Cleveland County, with reports of a Sasquatch-like creature locals dubbed Knobby dating back to the 1970′s, though county authorities say they have not received a report in years. Do you think this new sighting is genuine, or is it just a tall tale fueled by a mind altering substance?

NC man claims to have come face-to-face with Bigfoot
911 calls released from Sasquatch sighting in NC

Multiple Skunk Ape Sightings In Southern Georgia

John D — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:59:01 +0000

Recently, the Valdosta Daily Times published an article about the Skunk Ape, the bigfoot like cryptid said to inhabit the south east. Since then it has received numerous calls from readers who claim to have seen the creature. One of the sightings happened as recently as the 21st of April when a reader, identified only as Joy, was driving down a stretch Highway 37 in Berrien County that is lined with swampy terrain, Georgia when her headlights caught something walking into the woods.

“I saw the back of something,” Joy says. “It was tall. … I thought it was a bear but a bear don’t walk on its back legs. … Honestly, it looked like an ape.”

According to the report, the witness gauged the hight of the creature to be approximately 6 feet tall.

A skunk ape was also sighted earlier this spring in nearby Brooks County when a witness, who asked that the paper withhold his name, spotted the reddish brown creature from the back porch of his house. Watching through binoculars, the witness observed the skunk ape for several minutes and estimates that it was over six feet tall. Originally, the witness thought what he saw may have been a human wearing a ghillie suit, but as he looked on, the creatures movements appeared strange.

“It didn’t walk like a human,” he said. “It’s joints don’t quite move like a human.”

In search of the skunk ape [via Ghost Theory]

Skunk Ape Commemorated On Silver Coin

John D — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:36:44 +0000

First seen in 1818, the skunk ape has been a part of Florida folklore for nearly 200 years. Now, the Sunshine State’s very own bigfoot has been commemorated on a silver coin produced by Florida Skunk Ape, LLC. The one troy ounce silver coin features a rendering of a skunk ape on the front and an inscription reading “Florida Skunk Ape – The Southern Most Bigfoot In The U.S.A.” with the silhouette of Florida on the reverse. The novelty coin is also stamped to indicate that it contains on ounce of .999 fine silver. While the coin may never be worth more than the silver that it contains (about $16 at the time of writing), it is a nice piece of memorabilia for anyone interested in skunk apes or cryptozoology in general. The skunk ape commemorative coin is available from FloridaSkunkApeCoins.com for $29.95 with free shipping.

Florida Skunk Ape Silver Coin [via FloridaSkunkApe.com]

Witness recounts encounter with a Mothman in Texas

John D — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:40:26 +0000

A statue commemorating the first Mothman
sighting near Point Pleasant, WV

photo by Fokket

Quite possibly one of the worlds best know cryptids, the Mothman has been seen on and off across the United States for the past 40 plus years. Just recently a witness came forward and contacted About.com’s Paranormal Phenomena Guide Stephen Wagner with the details of an encounter near the Ft. Worth suburb of Mansfield, Texas.

In the fall of 2007 the witness was driving with her daughter along FM 157 between Mansfield and Venus, Texas around dusk when something caught her eye. At first she thought she was seeing a plastic bag caught in the wind, but as the object neared she saw it was no bag. It appeared to have a “human-like form with wings attached”. The witness reported the creature made no noise as it glided towards her car. Filled with fear she instinctively rolled up her window. When her daughter didn’t say anything, the witness began to think she was seeing things. Finally after driving a few miles she asked her daughter if she had seen the creature. The daughter replied that she had. They then sheepishly opened the inside cover of the sun roof to see if the creature, which had disappeared from sight, had landed on the roof, which luckily it had not.

Mothman in Texas

Did a documentary crew capture footage of a sasquatch?

John D — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:31:59 +0000

[UPDATED See below.] For a few brief seconds of the 2001 IMAX film “Great North” a dark figure is seen on the far side of a river. The figure, which went unnoticed for 9 years, seems to startle part of caribou heard that the crew was filming crossing the river. While the figure is currently unidentifiable in copies of the film available online, big foot researchers are currently attempting to track down the filmmakers in the hopes of being able to find a print of the film at the full IMAX quality for further analysis. If they are able to find a high quality version of film, the researchers should be able to tell whether or not the film crew inadvertently documented the existence of an undocumented North American hominid. Until that happens we are left to ponder over lower resolution versions of the clip, like this one taken from Youtube:

While there is definitely no way to make any identification of the figure, the clip is more that clear enough to peak my interest in finding out exactly what was filmed. What do you think?

For anyone interested, the full documentary is available on Hulu to anyone in the US.

UPDATE: It turns out that the figure in the video was a crew member that was positioned to direct the caribou heard.

In search of Great North camera crew [via Chris Holly's Paranormal World & GhostTheory]

Bring A Cryptid Home For The Holidays

John D — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:54:06 +0000

If you have even a passing interest in cryptozoology or the unknown, Loren Coleman’s newly opened International Cryptozoology Museum has the perfect addition for your Christmas Tree. Constructed of glass and resin the bigfoot and yeti ornaments are available in the Portland, Maine museum’s gift shop along with other cryptozoology related fare. Unfortunately, it appears that the ornaments are not available for order online. For those of you that are able to get to the museum to pick up an ornament, I definitely think this is a must have addition to any Christmas tree.

Bigfoot & Yeti Ornaments [via Boing Boing]

Cryptid Of The Month: The Skunk Ape

John D — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:05:03 +0000

Sometimes referred to as the Bigfoot of the South, the Skunk or Swamp Ape is a hominid that is said to inhabit the South Eastern United Sates. The skunk ape gets its name from the horrible odor that seems to accompany most sightings of the creature. They are described by witnesses as having brown to blackish fur and stand on average about 6 feet tall, though some witnesses have reported specimen as tall as 10 feet. The skunk ape most walks upright on its hind legs, but some reports indicate that swamp apes will sometimes drop to all fours to run. While there have been skunk ape sightings throughout the swamps of the South East, a large majority of sightings occur in the Florida Everglades.

Skunk ape sightings in the state of Florida date back as far as 1818 when residents spotted the creature in Apalachicola. Sightings continue to this day with the most recent Florida sighting being reported in the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization database occurring in March of this year. The incredible consistency in the descriptions that accompany sightings in Florida have led researchers to believe that if an unknown primate species exists, it most likely does so in the swamps of Florida. Taking up most of the southern tip of Florida, the Everglades provide almost 4 million acres of sparsely populated swamp for the skunk ape to call home without ever having to see a single human. Adding to the mystery, the local Seminole and Miccosukee Indian tribes that have lived in the Everglades for centuries are very reluctant to speak to outsiders about the creature.

Skunk Ape @ Wikipedia

Thunderbird sighted near Pacifica, Missouri

John D — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:49:02 +0000

photo courtesy of Chang’r

The following is an account of thunderbird sighing last week by a father and son as they drove to their hotel in Pacifica, Missouri (though a commenter on Crytpozoology Online thinks that they may have actually been in Pacific, Missouri from some of the details in their account):

We were in Pacifica MO, tonight around 11:30 and we noticed a massive flying creature, not once but three times. My son even noticed it on his own the third time. We were near a large cliff/mountain with some type of cave openings. We don’t live in the area, I can say for sure we turned onto a road called viaduct road, went past a fire station and continued on for about 1 mile before we first noticed it. It was brownish/grey and the body portion was at least the size of a large adult human. This creature was tracking us – in a circle pattern. We were driving an escalade with the blue color headlights, this may have cause interest in us. The third time around us we viewed it in front of the vehicle, around driver side and around towards the rear of the vehicle, the factory tinted windows did help it vanish into the sky from out point of view.

Please understand when we could see it the range must have been about 150 feet in the air, not more than 250 feet. The distance was never less than 100 yards, often much greater. We were going about 35- 45 MPH. I have never thought of anything like this in my life!

The pair found their encounter with the large bird so disturbing that neither was able to sleep. Unfortunately there are no pictures from the sighting, and even tracking down the exact location where it occurred may be difficult due to the witnesses unfamiliarity with the area. Never the less, if you are in the area around Pacifica (or maybe Pacific), Missouri, keep an eye on the sky as you may get a chance to glimpse this amazing creature.

LINDSAY SELBY: New thunderbird sighting [via Get X News and Stephen's Paranormal Phenomena Blog]

European Black Panther Sightings Continue In Luxembourg

John D — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:45:41 +0000

A string of black panther sightings that started in Meurthe-et-Moselle region of northeast France in August have continued with a new sighting being reported in Bascharage, Luxembourg. This sighting follows a similar instance a few weeks ago in the Ardennes region of Belgium. Despite an intense search of the area by both ground and air units, the animal was not found.

While black panther does not describe any particular species of cat and any black big cat is technically a black panther, modern science only accepts two species as being able to produce black panthers. These are the African leopard and the South American jaguar, neither of which (at least in modern times) are native to the region. Repeated sightings across Europe have led many to believe that there is an as of yet undiscovered species of big cat living in the region that is producing black panthers. An alternative theory for the numerous big cat sightings in Europe blame the sightings on escaped animals from circuses, zoos and private collections. This seems quite plausible as black leopards have been bred for centuries in captivity. At least in this case, no large black cats have been reported missing in the region, leaving the creatures origin a mystery.

Black panther spotted in factory area [via Phantoms and Monsters]

Could a Third of “Known” Dinosaurs Never Have Existed?

John D — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:45:31 +0000

According to National Geographic a controversial new theory suggests that as many of a third of currently recognized dinosaur species may never have existed at all. At least not as a true species. According to analysis by paleontologists from UC Berkley and Montana State University, many currently recognized species may in fact be misidentified juveniles of other known species. The paleontologists theorize that, like birds, the dinosaurs underwent drastic physical changes during adulthood. While other paleontologists acknowledge that some species may have been misidentified juveniles, just how many have been mistaken is the source of much controversy. Unfortunately, the amount of fossil material currently available to researchers is insufficient to adequately test this new theory.

A Third of Dinosaur Species Never Existed? [via IQXS]