sea serpent – Museum of the Weird

Posted on October 30, 2013 by MOTW Admin

PLESIOSAUR PHOTOGRAPHED OFF AUSTRALIAN COAST?

David “Crusty” Herron snapped this photo of what he dubbed "Lost Nessie" from a distance of about 600 feet from shore. — David “Crusty” Herron snapped this photo of what he dubbed “Lost Nessie” from a distance of about 600 feet from shore.

Last Friday, the scene from Magnetic Island off the northern coast of Australia must have looked like something straight out of The Lost World. Beachgoers were treated to the sight of what appeared to be a long-necked sea going creature straight out of our prehistoric past.

The strange looking object moving in the water was extraordinary enough to get the attention of numerous eyewitnesses, many wondering just what it could be.

Plesiosaur? Sea serpent? Or could it be something more mundane and explainable, like a piece of driftwood or a sunken boat? You decide.

From The Australian:

The strange sea sighting has created quite a buzz on the island, with locals desperate to know: just what is lurking in the water?

One of them is marriage celebrant David “Crusty” Herron, who photographed it from a beach about 200 metres away.

“It was bobbing up and down in the water and at first I thought, what’s that?” Mr Herron told AAP.

“Someone yelled out ‘it looks like a Loch Ness monster’.

“I’ve never seen anything like it – it could be anything. We are all wanting to know what it is.”

James Cook University biology professor Glen Chilton says while new and old creatures are constantly being discovered, even near the Great Barrier Reef, it’s unlikely to be a strange aquatic beast.

“It’s probably a piece of a tree or piece of a boat which has somehow broken away,” he told AAP.

Australian cryptozoologist and self-proclaimed “yowie man” Rex Gilroy is keeping an open mind. “It’s hard to say from the photo,” he said.

Mr Gilroy, who has authored books on mythical creatures, says he’s aware of about 800 sightings of reptilian creatures with long necks and football shaped heads.

Some of those were from the Magnetic Island and Townsville area, he said.

The most recent was in October last year when a fisherman saw a creature with a large grey coloured body protruding from waters off Magnetic Island, he said.

When asked if it could have been the remains of a dragon boat that supposedly sunk there in the recent past, the man who photographed the creature, David Herron, refuted it and compared the beast to a plesiosaur. Here’s “Crusty” being interviewed by News 7:

SOURCE: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/19578903/has-loch-ness-monster-migrated-to-nth-qld/

Posted on January 25, 2013 by MOTW Admin

SATURDAY, 1/26/13: CRYPTOMUNDO NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM!

This event is going on this weekend at the Museum of the Weird in downtown Austin. We’re going to have several famous cryptozoologists and authors as well as maybe a surprise appearance by Bigfoot himself! It’s going to be an awesome event!

UPDATE: all advance tickets are sold out, but we’ll still be selling regular admission to the Museum. Even though our advance tickets to the lectures and the movie screening are already sold out, we will still have the museum open for general admission, and you’ll still be able to meet the guests and get some signed books and swag, as well as attend dinner and drinks with the group afterwards at the Chupacabra Cantina and The Jackalope Bar next door. Hope to see you here!

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

3:00pm to 10:00pm

Museum of the Weird, in conjunction with the world’s foremost website on all things cryptid, Cryptomundo.com, will be hosting a very special event on January 26th at the Museum of the Weird in Austin, TX:

Cryptomundo Night at the Museum!

Featuring an all-star line up of world famous cryptozoologists, experts and authors, it’s sure to be a night of entertainment, intrigue and mystery as we explore the unknown creatures that lurk in the darker corners of the world we live in! Please come out and join us for the festivities!

Speaker presentations and author book signings include:

Lyle Blackburn, frontman for rock band Ghoultown, writer for Rue Morgue magazine and author of “The Beast of Boggy Creek”

Nick Redfern, author of “Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot”, “Monster Diary: On the Road in Search of Strange and Sinister Creatures”, “The World’s Weirdest Places,” “Memoirs of a Monster Hunter,” and “Monsters of Texas.”

Ken Gerhard, author of “Big Bird! Modern Sightings of Flying Monsters” and “Monsters of Texas.”

Dave Coleman, author of “The Bigfoot Filmography”

The event starts at 3:00pm and goes until 6:00pm, then a break for dinner and to explore 6th Street and downtown Austin.

It resumes again at 8:00pm with a special screening in the Museum’s Weird Theater of the ’70s drive-in classic “Creature from Black Lake.”

Posted on January 8, 2013 by MOTW Admin

GIANT SQUID FILMED ALIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME

Discovery Channel will air the first-ever footage of a live giant squid.

For the first time ever, we finally have video footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat, deep in the ocean’s abyss. The footage, which will air on a future Discovery Channel special, was captured by a film crew approximately 3,000 feet down in the Northern Pacific Ocean.

According to Richard Ellis, author of The Search for the Giant Squid, “It’s an exciting, exciting discovery.”

“We can learn how this thing moves, how it swims, what it does with its arms when it swims… Because it’s the first time anybody has ever seen one alive, it is an enormous breakthrough for science — and for mythology, of all things — because for a long time people didn’t even think they existed.”

I think this is great news for the field of cryptozoology, since here is a perfect example of something that has been described in sightings and legends like that of the Kraken (a giant tentacled sea monster); for centuries people dismissed it as fantasy, but yet modern scientists, who took great steps to seek out the creature, actually succeeded in proving and documenting its existence.

Here’s the CNN interview with Richard Ellis, unfortunately they don’t show any of the actual footage of the giant squid, just a few stills (I guess we’ll have to wait for that Discovery Channel special):

SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/world/2013/01/08/exp-early-ellis-giant-squid.cnn

Posted on January 3, 2013 by MOTW Admin

THE MAYAN APOCALYPSE DIDN’T HAPPEN, SO IS THIS THE NEW AGE? IT CAN BE.

Many people believed the end of the world would come on December 21, 2012, the date that marked the end of the Mayan calendar. That date has come and gone, and I can’t help but wonder what all the die-hard Mayan Apocalypse believers are thinking now.

There were two general ways of thinking about how this end would come: it would either be a horrific doomsday scenario that would be the end of all life as we know it, or it would mark the beginning of a new age of human enlightenment and responsibility.

One idea dwelt on the negative, the other positive.

So since the world didn’t end, where does that leave us now?

Since several days have passed and still no apocalypse in sight, I’d like to make a proposition to you, the person reading this, and to myself as well. I propose that you and I abandon all ideologies that promote fear, anger, hatred, and ridicule. Instead, let’s make a daily, conscious decision to live both our lives as positive and loving as we can be.

And how can we do this? There are two things that we must remember and embrace with the core of our being.

My high school track coach, Mr. Tintle, instilled in me one of the basic tenets of my being that I hold to this day. That is, one must have PMA, short for Positive Mental Attitude. With a positive mental attitude, you can achieve the impossible.

My other basic tenet is I live by the Golden Rule. I try not to do anything to anyone that I wouldn’t want done to myself. It’s that simple.

Keeping a Positive Mental Attitude and following the Golden Rule.

Adopt it. Embrace it. Teach it to your kids.

And with these two tenets in mind, I’d like to make a call to action to you and myself as well. Let’s do something in the world today, right now, that will make a positive difference. I’m writing an open letter to the world, now it’s your turn. What will you do?

Want to fight global warming and climate change? Plant a tree in your backyard. Can’t stand the partisanship that has taken over politics? Turn off the news and volunteer in your township. Upset about kids shooting other kids? Become a Big Brother or Big Sister to a troubled child… or simply a high school track coach.

The point I’m trying to make is, no matter how big the problems of our world seem to be… no matter what the difficulties we face… even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant action we take can make all the difference in the world.

*********************************************************************************

To the Mayans a Baktun was a measurement of time lasting approximately 400 years. December 21, 2012 marked the end of the 13th Baktun on the Mayan calendar, and the beginning of a new one. Descendants of the Mayans never believed the world was going to end on that date; instead, they look at the 14th Baktun as a period of hope and change.

So as we begin another year and another Baktun, I’d like to propose not just a new year’s resolution, but a “New Baktun Resolution” we all can adopt (after all, the next one won’t be for another 400 years). Let’s take this opportunity to leave all the hatred, negativity and baggage the human race has been carrying around with us for all the millennia we’ve walked this great earth and leave it in the past. Let’s take control of our destiny and stop living in fear. Let us start the new Bakun as a loving, more mature, and enlightened human race.

Not the end of the world, but the beginning of a new one.

Posted on October 16, 2012 by MOTW Admin

LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING HAS LOST AN EYE. A REALLY, REALLY BIG EYE..

Something, somewhere is having a little trouble seeing clearly right now and, whatever it is, it’s big. What could this huge eyeball possibly belong to? What unknown sea monsters of the deep have eyes this big? Could it be an ancient dinosaur that survived the ice age in the dark recesses of the worlds’ oceans? Read more and leave a comment with your own theories!

The Huffington Post writes:

South Florida beaches are usually places where people find sea shells, tiny crawling creatures and a shark tooth here and there, but a man walking on Pompano Beach Wednesday came across something out of the ordinary.

A giant eyeball.

Large enough to fit into his cupped hands, the beach stroller made a few calls and eventually got in touch with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who had an interest in his discovery, Carli Segelson, spokeswoman for the FWC told HuffPost Miami.

“This is definitely an unusual situation, where an eye would be found independent of any other body part,” she said.

Later in the day, an FWC employee came to pick up the blue-and-purple-colored eyeball and put it on ice. It will be shipped to the FWC’s Fish and Wildlife Research Center in St. Petersburg, where staffers hope to make an identification.

“It will probably take a little while to identify the eye,” Segelson said.

Read more and check out other photos at huffingtonpost.com

Posted on October 3, 2012 by MOTW Admin

MAN GOES FISHING, FINDS FINGER IN A FISH!

A man in Idaho caught something a little out of the usual the other day.

I’ve been fishing many times, and have my fair share of “it was THIS big” stories as well but, Calvin Nolan of Idaho has a story that’ll rival many anglers best tall tales. He found a human finger, well preserved, in a fish he caught!

CNN writes:

It’s a fish tale almost impossible to believe.

A fisherman found a human finger in the belly of a trout caught in a remote northern Idaho lake. And detectives located the owner, who delivered a surprising message.

Despite the hard work of investigators, Haans Galassi said he did not want to be reunited with his severed digit.

“At first the sheriff asked me if I wanted it back, and I was thinking ‘um, no!” Galassi, 31, said.

The reunion may bring back too much pain for Galassi, who is getting over the accident two months ago on an Idaho lake.

Galassi was wakeboarding on Priest Lake in July while holding on to a rope attached to a speed boat. Then things went terribly wrong.

He noticed too much slack in the rope, tried to correct it and the rope wrapped around his left hand, he said.

“It pulled me over in the water and dragged me for a few feet before it broke me free,” Galassi said. “I didn’t feel pain at first, just numbness, and I pulled my hand out of water and it was bad news. I look and see I’m missing all four fingers at that point.”

Galassi was rushed to the hospital and has been trying to get by without his fingers. He learned that he can still grip and grab items such as a steering wheel with his affected hand.

And then he got the strange phone call Tuesday from Det. Gary Johnston of the Bonner County Sheriff’s Department.

The fisherman who found the finger on September 11 quickly put it in a freezer and called the sheriff’s department, Johnston said.

“The lake is cold and deep so it was in remarkably good shape,” Johnston said. “We’d fingerprinted it and sent it to the state lab to match what’s on file and lo and behold, they came back and said that’s Haans’ little finger.”

Fisherman Calvin Nolan told CNN how he made the grisly discovery as he gutted a trout caught by his friend Mark Blackstone as they fished together.

He had noticed something in the gut of the fish that he thought looked like a crawdad, or crayfish, which they had been using as bait — but Blackstone said, “No, that’s a finger.”

NESSIE CAPTURED ON SONAR

Has the Loch Ness Monster known as 'Nessie' been caught on sonar?

This mobile phone photo supposedly shows the sonar read-out of what is said to be the Loch Ness Monster herself, Nessie.

Has she finally been discovered or has someone gotten a little ahead of themselves?

The sonar image showing a large, unidentified, living object deep underwater was recorded by Loch Ness boat skipper Marcus Atkinson.

Cryptomundo writes:

Questions are being raised a day after news of the new sonar image became widespread.

First off, it has been brought to my attention, as noted at the “Loch Ness Investigation” site of Dick Raynor’s, that,

“From time to time people on boats see unusual images on their fish-finder sonar screens, and if they are on Loch Ness there is always the possibility of accidental misinterpretation.”

Exampled explanations are shown here.

But perhaps truly damning, this year “Cruise Loch Ness” are running special monster hunting trips with underwater cameras on the boat skippered by…Marcus Atkinson – the man behind all the publicity of this new “discovery.”

Therefore, some locals are questioning Atkinson’s big splash in the media this week. Is it a marketing move?

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.

‘NESSIE’ CAPTURED BY FISH FARMER WHILE TAKING PHOTO OF RAINBOW

Well, captured in a photograph, at least. Hmm… Nessie and a rainbow in the same picture? Almost seems too good to be true!

It’s been said before and it’s being said again .. Nessie is alive under the waves of Loch Ness.

Once more the notoriously shy Loch Ness monster has been reportedly sighted in Scotland’s deepest loch. This time close to a commercial fish farm.

Jon Rowe, from nearby Lewiston in Drumnadrochit, took the eerie snaps moments before the mysterious shape slipped beneath the water.

Could this be Nessie? Jon Rowe says his image shows a pair of humps which soon disappeared under the waves

And the stunned fish farmer is convinced that the shapes he saw in the morning light are Nessie.

He said: ‘It was a very strange morning. It was misty with a bit of rain and sunny at the same time.

‘There was a rainbow so I got my camera out to take a photo and noticed this really large dark shape in the loch with two humps that were barely out of the water.

‘My instant reaction was “That’s Nessie”.’

Mr Rowe has dismissed claims that the shapes he saw in the water were not the legendary beast of the deep said to stalk the atmospheric Highland loch.

He added: ‘I have no doubt, I work on the loch everyday and I’ve never seen anything like it.

‘Almost as soon as I took the shot the shape disappeared under the water and out of sight.

The 31-year-old told how he had not believed that a monster swam the depths of Loch Ness until he captured Nessie on film.

‘It can’t have been a buoy or a mooring as it’s in the wrong place and the ropes would be visible in the water.

‘A few people have said it was birds diving under the water – but I didn’t see any birds fly by. It can’t have been birds – the whole thing went down into the loch.

‘It was quite spooky but I think it’s really interesting.’

MOTW-091411-Nessie_1 — Loch Ness: The two humps are clearly visible bottom centre in Jon Rowe's photo, as is the rainbow he originally set out to capture

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Guest Blogger

A TRUE “LIVING FOSSIL” EEL/FISH DISCOVERED!

I can’t believe we’re still finding new animals in the water all around the world, wait, yes I can because we’ve only explored 70% of our oceans! I’m sure there are still hundreds if not thousands of new things to discover. Who’s up for an adventure?

Cryptomundo writes:

The Proceedings of Royal Society B, 2011, is noting the discovery of a new species of fish. Their article is published here, and is entitled, “A ‘living fossil’ eel (Anguilliformes: Protoanguillidae, fam. nov.) from an undersea cave in Palau.”