Cryptozoology & Strange Nature – Page 10

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Guest Blogger

GIANT ‘TREE LOBSTER’ ONCE THOUGHT EXTINCT, FOUND ALIVE!

Nick Carlile, seen here with the Lord Howe Island stick insect, discovered the thought-to-be extinct phasmid in 2001 on Ball's Pyramid. -Daily Mail

Here’s a cool little story about a not-so-little bug that was once widely accepted as extinct, only to be discovered 80 years later, hidden from the world on a huge, lonely rock out in the middle of the ocean.

The giant stick bug or ‘tree lobster’ that was once found on Lord Howe Island near Australia, was believed to have gone extinct over 80 years ago when a grounded ship allowed black rats to escape from it’s cargo and subsequently find their new favorite meal, huge phasmid insects called, easily enough, stick bugs. Just a few years later, the bugs were nowhere to be found… and the rats had gotten fat.

A couple of researchers thought they may have some luck finding these guys still alive after some info came down the pipe-line about a possible sighting on another island just a few miles away called Ball’s Pyramid.

Ball's Pyramid, the giant rock jutting out of the ocean all by itself, where the giant stick-bug was found.

Sure enough, they were there, clinging to the one plant that survived on the lifeless island. The researchers quickly made a plea to the Australian government to take some specimens and attempt to build a population large enough to re-introduce back to the island it once inhabited, after the black rats are taken care of, of course.

The Daily Mail writes:

A narrow and forbidding rock that stands higher than the Empire State Building, it does not look like the most welcoming place to set up home.

But that did not stop an insect which was thought to be extinct for 80 years from building its last known colony on the 1,844ft high Ball’s Pyramid.

Scientists have discovered 24 of the creatures living 500ft above the South Pacific Ocean around the single plant that had survived on the rock.

The ‘tree lobster’ insect, which is as large as a human hand, had somehow made its camp despite the lack of food and the harsh conditions.

Nobody could say how they got there in the first place – but four have now been taken off and have bred thousands more to ensure their species survives.

DOG-HEADED PIG MONSTER ATTACKS!

A dog-headed pig monster has began to terrorize villagers in northern Namibia, which is on the southwest coast of Africa, and seems to have caused quite a bit of trouble by attacking dogs, goats and anything else that gets in its way.

People of the region just beyond the Kalahari desert have never seen anything like this creature before and say it must be the work of aliens or ‘black magic’.

Although there are no photos of said monster, it has worked it’s way into the headlines of major news outlets around the world.

Yahoo News writes:

Residents in northern Namibia, on the southwest coast of Africa, have reported being terrorized by a bizarre dog-pig hybrid creature.

The animal is said to be mostly white and unlike anything the villagers have ever seen, with a doglike head and the broad, round, nearly hairless back and shoulders of a giant pig. The beast was spotted chasing and attacking dogs, goats and other domestic animals in this arid region not far from the Kalahari desert.

As often happens when rumors of monsters spread in rural areas around the world, some locals have taken extra safety precautions, such as traveling in groups and arming themselves with weapons.

In 1995 and 1996, some Puerto Ricans armed themselves against the vampire beast el chupacabra; last year, Malaysian residents patrolled the streets searching for the mysterious orang minyak, or “oily man” creature that had recently terrorized them.

MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD ON THE NEWS!

A section of the front of the shop as seen from the world famous 6th Street in downtown Austin, Tx.

Hey there fellow weirdos, just a bit of neat info for you!

We’ve been featured on a local news station here in Austin and we would like to share it with you. This town is super great to us and seems to support what we got going on full-heartedly, and we couldn’t be happier!

Head on over to YNN (Your News Now) to check out our feature under their “Local Wonders” section and leave some feedback with them about any experiences you may have had with us! <–click here

Thanks again Austin, and all the other folks from cities across the world that visit our website and make the trip in to see the Museum of the Weird. We certainly appreciate your support and will continue to keep Austin, and the rest of the world, weird!

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Guest Blogger

RARE WHITE BEAR FOUND IN GREEN FORESTS!

The "Spirit" bear aka the Kermode bear, or just plain "the white bear", lives in the forests of British Columbia amongst it's black bear bretheren.

A magnificent and extremely rare animal has finally been spotted and captured on film by wildlife photographer Paul Nicklen in Canada.

Although it looks like a polar bear has gotten loose from a local zoo and has wandered off into the woods, this beautiful white bear is there on purpose, courtesy of mother nature!

With only 200 of these guys running around in the wild, a sighting is extremely rare, and taking photographs of the “Spirit” bear is even rarer.

The uber-rare white bear dealing with it's common brother invading his territory, the black bear.

One man has the patience enough to have made these pictures possible, Paul Nicklen waited and wandered the deep and dense forests of British Columbia, Canada all for the chance of getting a glimpse of, and photographing what he’s dreamt of since he was a child, and for that we must thank him.

So, thank you Paul Nicklen!

The Daily Mail writes:

You could be forgiven for thinking it was a polar bear that had wandered off the ice and somehow found itself in a forest. But this golden, almost white, beautifully unique creature is in fact a white variant of the North American black bear known as the spirit bear.

The animal, also known as the Kermode bear, lives among more conventional-looking black bears in the dense green forests of British Columbia in Canada.

Once thought to be a myth, these legendary creatures are now so precious to the people of British Columbia, the Government has made it an offence to shoot one – with a fine of up to $100,000 CAD. Wildlife photographers now travel from across the globe for the chance to capture the white bear on camera, which are virtually impossible to photograph, due to their scarcity.

But one lucky photographer who captured this series of images of the spirit bear in it’s natural habitat is Paul Nicklen. The 43-year-old from Vancouver, Canada, said: ‘This little bear is amazing its pure white, it’s not a polar bear and there are only 200 left in the world – it’s more rare than a panda.

DOES DEVIL’S HOLE REALLY EXIST?

"Devil's Hole" by photographer Pamela Smith.

There’s plenty of stories that tell a tale of an endless, bottomless pit that houses all kinds of wonders and supernatural beings down in its’ depths.

Supposedly, there’s one right here in America, hidden in the forests of Washington and only one man claims to have ever seen it.

Komo News writes:

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — From Bigfoot to the disappearance of D.B. Cooper, the Pacific Northwest is full of mysteries. Another mystery buried deep in the hills of eastern Washington keeps resurfacing. Ellensburg and its surrounding valleys and Manastash Ridge are beautiful in any season. Some believe what lies beneath is a deep, dark hole with supernatural powers.

A man named Red Elk is one of the only people alive known to have ever seen the mysterious hole. A Native American Shaman, or medicine man, Red Elk said his dad first showed him the hole in 1961. “He said ‘This is an endless hole,'” Red Elk said. Red Elk’s been back many times and said strange things happen every time he goes near it. “People get it confused with what I call the devil’s hole,” he said.

Many locals claim to know about the hole, but it didn’t become phenomena until 1997, when Mel Waters went on the Coast to Coast radio show with Art Bell. “I brought the dogs with me.” Waters said on the show. “They wouldn’t go anywhere near the damn thing.” Waters said the hole had a three-foot stone wall around it. It seemed bottomless to him, so he used an old shark fisherman’s trick — sending thousands of feet of fishing line down.

“What I did, was I sent down a roll of lifesavers,” he said. “So when it hit water the lifesavers would dissolve.” But the lifesavers came back up whole — no water — so how deep was this hole? Waters said he believed it descended miles into the earth and he heard strange stories about its powers. “One guy claims that he threw his departed canine down into the hole,” he said. “He swears the dog actually came back to him.”

MYSTERY OF BLUE FAMILY REVEALED!

The "Blue Family", parents Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith with all seven children, four of them blue!

What we see in this photo from the late 1800’s seems too weird to be true but, is in fact, reality!

Turns out that a little bit of recessive genes mixed with some inbreeding turns your skin blue! Who knew?!

The Daily Mail writes:

In the Appalachian Mountains rests a medical oddity so unusual that it at first seems a massive hoax.

Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky – who can trace their roots back to a French orphan – started producing children who were blue.

As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes, intermarriage and inbreeding, members of the Fugate family were born with a rare condition that made them visibly discoloured.

The mystery behind the astonishing picture of the Fugates, which has been baffling people for years, appears to have finally been solved.

It began when Martin Fugate, a French orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky’s Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century.

He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith – who had a very pale complexion – and their union formed a genetic mutation that resulted in their descendants being born with blue skin.

WOOLLY MAMMOTH FILMED IN SIBERIA?

Is this a real Woolly Mammoth, thought to have gone extinct over 3,000 years ago?

This is a remarkable sighting if you can believe your eyes!

This fuzzy still frame from a video posted on Youtube seems to show a Woolly Mammoth in Siberia crossing an icy, flowing river in the heart of winter.

Although, on closer inspection, it seems a bit more likely to be a very large bear carrying a rather large fish. What would be the “trunk” of this beast doesn’t articulate like your average elephants would, doesn’t seem to be connected judging by the color seperation that happens where the link to the head would be and it seems to be dangling and moves only with the rushing of the water hitting it.

Here’s the footage shot by a government engineer while surveying for the new construction of roadways in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia. You be the judge of what you see and leave us some feedback!

The Sun writes:

A BEAST lurches through icy waters in a sighting a paranormal investigator thinks could prove woolly mammoths are not extinct after all.

The animal – thought to have mostly died out roughly 4,000 years ago – was apparently filmed wading through a river in the freezing wilds of Siberia.

The jaw-dropping footage was caught by a government-employed engineer last summer in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia, it is claimed.

He filmed the elephant-sized creature as it struggled against the racing water.

Its hair matches samples recovered from mammoth remains regularly dug up from the permafrost in frozen Russia.

NEW CONTENDER FOR WOLRDS SHORTEST MAN!

The newest person to vie for the spot of world's shortest man, Chandra Bahadur Dangi.

Each and everyday brings something new and fascinating when part of your job is googling “weird news”, and today’s no different!

Here we see Chandra Bahadur Dangi, possibly, the newest addition to the Guinness World Record Book for the title of “World’s Shortest Man”.

Living in Nepal, he’s been out of sight and unable to communicate with the world at large, which is why this is the first we’re hearing of him. Good luck to the man and the guinness officials heading out to his village right now to take the actual measurements.

Here’s some video of Chandra walking about in his village with some average sized friends:

The Huffington Post writes:

A 72-year-old man may soon have a new title: The world’s shortest man.

The man in question is Chandra Bahadur Dangi, who lives in a remote valley in southwestern Nepal, and, according to some sources is just 22 inches tall.

Officials from Guinness World Records are currently on their way to Dangi’s village to verify the claim or see if it’s just a tall tale.

While it might seem strange that someone as short as Dangi could go unnoticed for so long,MyRepublica.com claims that was because he lived in such a remote village with no access to communication.

LAKE MONSTER FILMED IN ICELAND

Lake Lagarfljot, shot by Brian Rueb of brianruebphotography.com, where the "monster" is said to dwell.

Here’s some amazing footage straight out of one of the most beautiful places in the world, Iceland. Well, more specifically this footage was captured at the river of Jökulsá í Fljótsdal in eastern Iceland and is remarkably clear for a “monster” sighting of any kind, let alone this one in particular which seems to have never been caught on film before.

A still frame from the video of the Lagarfljotsormurinn, found on Youtube.

From the still frame above it would seem as though this “monster” has a very snake-like head and body, almost one of a python or a constrictor type that have been known and documented to grow into some of the largest snakes in the world.

Here is the Lagarfljotsormurinn caught on film in Iceland just days ago:

Iceland Review writes:

Footage was captured of an obscure phenomenon yesterday which appeared to be swimming in the glacial river Jökulsá í Fljótsdal, east Iceland

People speculate whether this may be the notorious snake-like monster Lagarfljótsormurinn, which is said to reside in the lake Lagarfljót.

The video was taken by Hjörtur Kjerúlf and posted on ruv.is.

Lagarfljótsormurinn is Iceland’s equivalent to Scotland’s Loch Ness monster. It was first mentioned in sources dating back to 1345. According to legend, it was at first a tiny worm which was placed on a ring of gold to make the gold grow.

When the owner of the ring returned she noticed to her great terror that the worm had grown immensely but not the gold. She tossed the ring and worm into Lagarfljót where the worm continued to grow.

NEWLY DISCOVERED ‘SUPERGIANT’ CRUSTACEAN

This big guy is usually only 2-3cm long but, not this time.

Look at this thing, it’s huge!

This is the size it’s supposed to be:

What this new crustacean looks like at normal sizes.

Apparently, they pulled this and 6 other ‘Supergiant” crustaceans out of water so deep that, before this, they thought nothing was able to live that far down into the dark depths of our oceans.

They were wrong, which seems to happen every now and then in the world of science but, you know, that’s why we keep studying!

Could you imagine if other things got “super-sized” like this randomly? They compared finding this gigantic crustacean with finding a foot-long cockroach. That’s one bug infestation I do NOT want to ever have.

BBC News writes:

A huge crustacean has been found lurking 7km down in the waters off the coast of New Zealand. The creature – called a supergiant – is a type of amphipod, which are normally around 2-3cm long.

But these beasts, discovered in the Kermadec Trench, were more than 10 times bigger: the largest found measured in at 34cm.

Alan Jamieson, from the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab, said: “It’s a bit like finding a foot-long cockroach.”

“I stopped and thought: ‘What on Earth was that?’ This amphipod was far bigger than I ever thought possible. It just goes to show that the more you look, the more you find”

The strange animals were found using a large metal trap, which had been equipped with a camera, housed in sapphire glass to keep it safe from the high pressures of the deep sea.

Seven specimens were caught in the trap and nine were captured on film by the team from the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), in New Zealand.