Mysterious Creatures

MYSTERIES OF THE UNKNOWN

Mysterious Creatures

By the Editors of Time-Life Books

TIME-LIFE BOOKS, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

 CONTOIS

Essay A Gallery of Fabled Beasts

CHAPTER 1

Creatures of fhe Sea

16

Essay Confronting the Giant Squid

45

Essay Beasts in Human Form

52

CHAPTER 2

The Quest ior Nessie

6G

Essay An Elusive Creature of the Congo

91

CHAPTER 3

In Pursuit of Bigfoof and Yell

^5

Essay Monsters at the Matinee

127

Acknowledgments
138

Bibliography
138

Picture Credits
139

Index
140
*
 A Gallery of Fabled Beasts

Rleal or imagined, strange crea-

tures have walked the earth, swum in its seas, and winged through
its skies from time immemorial; striking terror and awe in their

beholders. And over many centuries, some of the most ferocious of

these monsters have become firmly entrenched in legend, stand-
human imagination.
ing as vivid testimony to the
may seem, it is generally believed
Incredible as such creatures
that they were based loosely on actual beasts— some of which
were themselves known only through the reports of travelers and
explorers returned from far-off lands. The griffin, a medieval in-
vention that was said to live in some distant country, is a fanciful
amalgam of the lion and the eagle. More than one fictitious mon-
ster was modeled after the snake, an animal long equated with evil
in Western civilization. Almost certainly, the snake was the basis
for the fire-breathing dragon, a creature onto which bat's wings
and appear to have been grafted. Scholars have fur-
lizard's limbs
ther speculated that the remains of extinct animals, such as those
of woolly mammoths and cave bears, might have inspired the cre-
ation of such monsters.
If the precise source of mythical monsters is a mystery, so is

the motivation for conjuring up such creatures. Perhaps they were

a convenient way to represent a civilization's innermost fears and
fantasies or a means of explaining natural phenomena for which
there were no obvious causes. Portraits of some of those extraor-
dinary beings of myth and legend appear on the following pages.
 Hie Fearcome and Fiery Dragon
Winged dragons made their Western appearances in the works of ancient
first

Greece and in the Bible *t it was medieval Europe whose imagination was most
captured by the stubrv legged, fire-breathing monsters. As legend had it,
any of those terrify ii s, often having formidable horns, horrible fangs, and

pestilential (

hold a town hostage and devour young virgins

uni ' was killed hv \ .1 k
night, usually armed with a magical sword. The
I fanu hero i« 1? a town and maiden was Saint George,
whose victory was seen as an allegory for Christianity's triumph over the powers of
darkness. Dragons also loomed large in Chinese folklore, where they
were relatively benign. But in the West they were evil; the real-life model for the
fictional vampire Dracula, the prince Vlad Tepes, was nicknamed
Dracula after the Romanian word for dragon and devil. Even in death, a dragon
reportedly had extraordinary powers. A drop of its blood could kill
instantly, and its teeth, planted in the earth, sprang up overnight as armed men.
 The Man-Faced Manficore
Reputed prowl the jungles of India, the fearsome manticore had the body
to
of
1 ll()n lhc l,a ^ the stinging tail of a scorpion. Its huge jaws, however,
miqu iey held three rows of razor-sharp teeth,
upper and lower, that
1 llk( : j

>mb when the beast closed its mouth. The teeth could
,rl >' an ) ns,and the manticore was said to relish feasting on
rous from afar as well. With its strangely segmented
>uld lire- lethal lingers that traveled as much as a hundred feet.

•
 The Deceptive Krahen
The Kraken of Scandinavian lore was a horned sea monster so huge that it was
sometimes mistaken for a group of islands by unsuspecting sailors who ventured far
from shore. But when curious mariners drew near, the islands might erupt
into a mass of multiple heads, horns, and waving tentacles that could grasp and sink
even the largest of ships. The Kraken was also known to discharge an inky
liquid that blackened and poisoned the waters-a characteristic that, like its tentacles
reveals the creature to be a monster-size version of the real-life giant squid.
 The Baleful Basilisk
Of all the legendary monsters, none was deadlier than the basilisk, or cockatrice. Part
serpent, pai ime from an egg laid by a seven-year-old cock during
the time thai Siriu n the heavens. The egg was spherical and covered by
a thick membrane, and metimes it was hatched by a toad, who sat on it

nin union produced a creature whose breath could

scorch t hose glance was lethal-even to itself.
A* ;ly, <in\ to slav the basilisk was wise to carry a mirror.

12
 The Many-Headed Hydra
Said to lurk in swamps and other such watery realms, the hydra was a
grotesque creature with at least seven independent heads— the center one of which
was immortal— and an alarming ability to grow more. For every head that was
lopped off by an adversary, the hydra grew two in its place. But this hideous beast
was finally destroyed by Hercules, who buried the immortal head under a rock
and burned off the others. The ancient Greeks probably got their inspiration for the
mythical hydra from the octopus, which can regenerate lost tentacles.

'3
 The Gigantic Griffin
Hall lion and hall - le, the griffin was far more formidable than either of those
'•-
beasts. It h., and tail of a lion but was it had
eight times as large;
- agle's head hut was a hundred times stronger. This bizarre creature
was thought to dwell in the mountains, from which it swooped down on its
powerful
ith ist could carry back to its nest a horse and rider-it

vas said to appetite for both -or even a pair of oxen

Y tu thor. Sometinn ^rif'li themselves used for transport by the gods;

-.1
 the chariot that bore Nemesis, the ancient Greeks' dreaded goddess of vengeance,
was frequently drawn by griffins. Naturally enough, humans were well
advised to avoid the beast at all costs. But it was so powerful that parts of its body
were greatly prized as talismans against evil and misfortune. Especially
sought after were its claws, the size of oxen horns, which were said to darken at the
merest touch of poison. During the Middle Ages, antelope horns or the
tusks of extinct mammoths were often sold to the gullible as g v claws.

'5
 CHAPTER 1

Creatures of (he Sea

n the afternoon of October 31, 1983, a construction crew in Marin County,

California, was hard at work on a coastal cliffside, repairing a stretch of
Highway 1 . Beneath them lay the sandy expanse of Stinson Beach and the
vast waters of the Pacific. Shortly before two o'clock, a flagman on the crew
turned away from his post and peered out to sea: He had spotted something
very large and very strange speeding through the water toward the shore.
The flagman quickly radioed a fellow worker, Matt Ratto, to grab his binoc-

ulars and take a closer look.

Up to then, the most interesting sight the binoculars had yielded was
an occasional nude sunbather on the beach below. But now, through the
field glasses, Ratto observed a gigantic, dark animal just a quarter of a mile
away from his bird's-eye vantage point. It was like nothing he had ever seen
before— a hundred feet long and quite thin, with three vertical humps or
coils. On an otherwise ordinary autumn afternoon, Matt Ratto suddenly
found himself staring at what looked, for all the world, to be a sea serpent.
As he watched, the creature picked its head up out of the water, ap-
pearing to look around. Then it reversed its direction, turning sharply and
submerging its head, and swam back out to sea. Another witness, a truck
driver named Steve Bjora, estimated its speed at forty-five to fifty miles an
hour. To Bjora, who saw only two humps, the creature resembled a long eel.

A total of five workers viewed the spectacle that day, and their descrip-
tions were in agreement concerning the beast's great length, slimness, and
dark color. Another witness, transportation safety inspector Marlene Martin,
possibly hoping to avoid ridicule, refused to discuss the sighting publicly.
According to her daughter, however, Martin had indeed observed the crea-
ture and had described it to her family as a four-humped beast -the biggest
thing that she had ever seen.
Yet another witness, nineteen-year-old Roland Curry, caught a glimpse
of the serpent from the beach that afternoon. Later, he told reporters excit-
lly that it was the second time he had sighted the beast in less than a
k He had mentioned the first incident to his girlfriend but then let the
1rop after she told him that he was "nuts'' Now, having seen the
 tnesses present, fie was con- past. As one biologist reflected at the time, "there may
vinced it was real. be all sorts of prehistoric creatures swimming around out
Three days after the Stinson Beach sighting, a group of there that we know nothing about."
surfers spotted a similar monster more than 400 miles to A monster is by definition anything that fails to con-
the south, near Costa Mesa. Young Hutchinson, a twenty- form to general views of what is normal— anything too
nine-year-old surfer, said it emerged from the waters off the strange, too large, too ugly, too evil, or too terrifying to be
Santa Ana River jetty just ten feet from his board. At first "real." Since the dawn of history, people have been be-
Hutchinson was reluctant to speak of the incident, thinking guiled and repelled by tales of legendary monsters— large,
that it was "too crazy." But after reading about the Marin hidden animals, known to individuals or local populations

County sightings, he came forward, confirming that the but not to the world at large. Monsters have captured the
creature was just as the highway workers had described it— imagination of poets, clerics, mariners, scientists, and ordi-
"a long black eel." nary citizens and fueled the ambitions of charlatans and at-

Throughout the century, there had been periodic tention seekers. Yet these creatures have persistently elud-
sightings of mysterious creatures off the Pacific coast, but ed their human hunters, seeming to secrete themselves in
no one had ever been able to determine what they were. the earth's most remote and mysterious regions: oceans
Scientists speculated that the 1983 apparitions may have and seas, rivers and lakes, mountains and forests.

been the distorted silhouettes of whales backlighted by the The vast, largely unexplored oceans have always been
sun; others suggested that the beasts might have been lines considered a breeding ground for strange creatures— identi-
of jumping porpoises. Ratto and Hutchinson scorned these fied and unidentified. Ancient mapmakers depicted seas
logical explanations. Both of them knew what whales teeming with beasts of every description— spiny, winged,
looked like, and they were positive that the thing they had horned, sharp-toothed, many-tentacled. Some of these, like

seen was not a whale. the giant squid, have made the transition from mythical fan-

Of course, it is possible that Ratto, Hutchinson, and cy to zoological fact. Others, generally called sea serpents—
the others happened upon some sort of known phenome- whether or not they are actually reptiles— still await scien-
non and simply failed to recognize it. Perhaps the October tific discovery.

31 sightings were Halloween hoaxes or mass hallucina- Meanwhile, the deepest reaches of inland rivers and
tions. Perhaps news coverage colored the vision of the later lakes are the reputed domain of great freshwater beasts

witnesses, causing them to see a phantom serpent in every such as the Loch Ness monster, or Nessie, and of Ogopogo,
swell or to indulge their fantasies of involvement in a big Champ, and Morag— many of them named for the bodies of
event. On the other hand, the Stinson Beach and Costa Me- water they haunt. And on land, remote mountains and for-

sa witnesses really may have seen an unknown marine ests around the world supposedly conceal huge, hairy, hu-
monster-even an isolated species from the earth's far dis- manlike creatures with names like Yeti— the so-called

17
 Inspired by mariners' tales of encounters with exotic creatures,
artists over the centuries have made images of the monsters-
real or imaginary -that lurk in the sea. A sampling of their often
fanciful drawings appears on these pages.

This sea devil was Almost everything known about this underwater
allegedly caught in the
world is the result of recent technology. Using sophisticated
Adriatic in the 1400s.
sonar equipment, oceanic cartographers have produced de-
English lore tells of tailed maps that show and even name most of the
a sea dragon.
subaqueous regions and
Abominable Snowman -Almas, Yowie, and Sas- formations. But scientists

quatch, also known as Bigfoot. have yet explored only

While all of these reputed sea, lake, and land mon- minute fractions of all the

sters have abundant natural hiding places, the oceans are oceans' depths firsthand and thus

certainly the widest, deepest, and most difficult to have little idea of what life-forms may
explore. These great bodies of water hold many be lurking in the watery plains, trenches,
mysteries and only grudgingly mountains, and valleys. Over the past
yieldclues-many purely by few decades, sizable "new" aquatic crea-
chance. Even the most gigantic of beasts, after all, tures—having escaped hu-
would be a microscopic drop in the vast bucket of man detection for thou-
the world's oceans, bays, and estuaries. sands of years— have been steadily coming to light.

Most undersea exploration has been limited to the The study of previously unknown species— of the land
and air as well as the sea -is known as cryptozoology, lit-

erally, the science of hidden animals (page 20). Among the

most spectacular modern finds was a creature that, though

not a sea serpent, was indeed a prehistoric marine mon-

ster. The series of chance events leading to its discovery

began in December of 1938, when fishermen aboard a

This prickly creature South African trawler noticed a decidedly strange crea-
was called a fish pig.
ture flopping amid the ordinary catch hauled from the
relatively narrow and waters of the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the large, dark blue fish

shallow continental shelves with armorlike scales and huge blue eyes was so unusual
that surround the major bodies of that the trawler's owners presented it to Marjory
land These shelves account for only Courtenay-Latimer, curator of the natural history museum
seven percent of all underwater territory and do not even in East London, South Africa. Unable to identify the fish, she
hint at the topographical variety of deeper regions: the pre- wrote to Professor J. L. B. Smith at Rhodes University, en-
cipitous continental slopes, the deep canyons and gullies, closing a sketch. Unfortunately, the heavy volume of Christ-
the gentle continental rises, and the flat, desertlike abyssal mas mail delayed the letter for several weeks, by which
plain This plain, 12,000 feet below sea level on average, time the curator had had the fish mounted in order to pre-
covers nearly half the earth's surface. Relieving the monot- serve it; the internal organs had disappeared in the trash.
ony are occasional chasms, or trenches. The most spectac- Nevertheless, the professor identified the
ular, the Mindanao trench off the Philippines, plunges to creature as a coelacanth-a fish that had
ck-pths of about 36,000 feet And rising from the center of The enormous
squirting whale
the two mile deep plain is the earth's largest mountain resembled an island.
range -the 10,000-
ean
il winds

18
lived 300 million years before and had been presumed ex- a classic success story: A hidden ani-
tinct for nearly 70 million years. Smith named the discov- mal turns up by chance, falls into the

ery Latimeria chalumnae and published his findings, in- right hands, and attracts instant sci-

stantly creating a worldwide sensation. The scientific entific acclaim. And the fact that the
community hailed This sinuous, bat-winged sea coelacanth was presumed extinct was
his single mutilated
***" resembles *&»* eeL a special boon for

specimen as the sea-monster re-

find of the century. searchers-for

Professor Smith, howev- if this prehistoric

er, could not be satisfied without a com- fish could survive undetected to
plete coelacanth. Printing leaflets in modern times, might not any number of other ancient ma-
rine creatures do the same?
Another, more arduous, success story is that of the gi-

ant squid, which endured millennia of legend, centuries of

ridicule, and decades of limbo before gaining identity as a

scientific reality. The matter of the closely related giant oc-

topus, on the other hand, has not yet reached its conclu-
sion. At present the creature remains in the half-light of

quasi recognition.
Although both of these cephalopods (from the ancient

Multiple eyes dot a piglike fish.

Greek for head and foot) are characterized by long, muscu-

three languages, he offered a reward of 100 British pounds lar arms lined with suckers and highly developed eyes, biol-

for each of the next two intact specimens.

One world war and fourteen years later, the pro-

fessor found his second coelacanth. A fisherman

named Ahmed Hussein had caught the fish in sixty-five

feet of water near the shore of Anjuan, one of the Corn-

ores Islands located off the coast of Mozambique. All the
islanders were familiar with the rare creature: They called
This whale was seen near Britain.
it kombessa and considered it an edible but not particularly
ogists see clear distinctions between the normal-size squid
tasty meal. Hussein might well have eaten or sold his catch,
but he chanced to meet a teacher who remembered the pro- and octopus. Squid have ten arms, two of which are long,

promise of a reward worth three specialized tentacles, and they are active predators, with
fessor's leaflets, with their

years' income by the islanders' economic standards. So it

slender, streamlined bodies made for pursuing their victims.

was that the men got word Octopuses are more bulbous shaped, have eight arms, and
^% to Professor Smith. Al-
are more passive
though this fish too and reclusive,
was damaged, it did rarely leaving

contain most of the their ocean-

internal organs. More floor lairs. However, in

established the the legends passed on

important, it

through the ages, the two

coelacanth's natural habitat and led
giant versions of these
to subsequent discoveries.
cephalopods have been A pig whale has walruslike tusks.
In the annals of crypto-
zoology, the history so inextricably intertwined and so frequently confused that

of the coelacanth is
it is sometimes hard to distinguish them. Often the crea-
A creature with a wild tures of ancient lore combine the characteristics of both-
mane rears up and with a few whale traits thrown in for good measure.
spews forth water
from its dual spouts. The first known chronicler of the giant cephalopod

19
 Ihe Search tor Unknown Beasts

< V) [1
A small band of biologists share a
dream— to find species of sea or land
animals hitherto completely unknown
or to rediscover living examples of ani-
mals thought
ago. Finds
to
made
have died out ages
in this century en-
species of peccary supposedly extinct
since the last ice age, for instance,
were found in

entists useful clues.

in
Paraguay in 1975.
Native peoples sometimes offer sci-
An unusual
a local's hat sparked the discovery
feather

courage these dreamers, whose field is of ashowy African peacock in 1936,

aptly named cryptozoology-literally, and accounts of giant lizards on the
the science of hidden animals. Indonesian island of Komodo proved
Size and habitat are often responsi- not to be mere myth when naturalist
ble for an animal's having been over- P. A. Ouwens identified four of the
looked. Not surprisingly, a bumblebee- creatures captured in 1912. As crypto-
.
size bat that lives in caves in Thailand zoologists follow such leads into
eluded detection until 1973. But larger little-explored areas, they remain opti-
animals remote sites have also
in less mistic that it is not too late to uncover
•i remained hidden. Herds of a sensational surprises

L
Found off Hawaii in November
K 3»
KgE*
1 976, this previously unknown
shark was dubbed Mega-
mouth. Another was netted
off California in 1984. .
;-

on has a 100 tt has been known to science for less than a century.
20
 The extremely rare giant panda is found Africa, a rich source of new species, yielded
only in China and Tibet. Westerners the giant forest hog of Kenya in 1 904. No genus of

V
first saw a live one in the early 1 900s. large terrestrial mammal has been found since.

- -

S -' v *
•'
i . i
-

.,>

A member of the giraffe family, the N jT^ri its remote habitat m

shy okapi inhabits the rain
forests of the Congo. It was unknown -t*
•-'
_ *
\ L .v central equatorial
to science until around 1900. f Vf ,
Africa's volcanic
highlands protected
the shy, shaggy-
/\ coated moun tain
s t gorilla from discov-
ery until 1901.

• •"

J J! J 9
was the poet Homer, who lived in the eighth or ninth cen- or branches." The creature's flexible back reportedly mea-
tury BC In his Odyssey, he describes the horrific monster sured a full English mile and a half in circumference, ap-

Scylla, who-despite her odd habit of yelping and her over- pearing at first to be a number of separate small islands,

abundance of feet, necks, and heads-appears to be a and its arms were sometimes as long as "masts of middle-
mythical embodiment of the giant octopus. Like the octo- sized vessels." Pontoppidan further described the monster

pus, she awaits her prey "hid in the depth of the cavern." as capable of sinking great ships— a deed long attributed to
However, Scylla's "teeth in a threefold order" sound more the giant squid.

like rows of a squid's serrated suckers than an octopus's At the beginning of the nineteenth century, giant
smooth ones cephalopods claimed one academic victim— at least figura-
Medusa, another of Greek mythology's hideous mon- tively. The French naturalist Pierre Denys de Montfort, fas-

sters, may also be a giant cephalopod. Her hair of writhing cinated by the rumored monsters, conducted extensive re-
snakes may well have represented arms, which in both oc- search on reported sightings and on remains found in the

topus and squid appear to grow directly out of the head. stomachs of sperm whales. In 1802 he published his Histoire
Medusa's stare, which turned men to stone, calls to mind Naturelle des Mollusques, but the work did more to set back
the huge, malevolent, almost-human eyes of the giant the cause of serious research than to advance it. Denys de
squid, possibly also of the giant octopus. In one dramatic Montfort was undiscriminating in his choice of material, cit-

twentieth-century encounter with a huge squid, a deep-sea ing stories so sensationalistic and presenting illustrations

salvage diver recounted how he was almost hypnotized, so so exaggerated that the scientific community ridiculed, den-
enthralled was he by the creature's eyes— "eyes which igrated, and ostracized him. He ended his days in poverty
seemed to concentrate in their gaze everything malignant and literally died in the gutter, on a street in Paris.
and hateful." Only the squid's sudden movement brought Nevertheless, in the mid-nineteenth century, Danish
the diver to his senses so that he could escape. zoologist Johan Japetus Steenstrup dared to readdress the
the period preceding the Middle Ages, the giant Kraken-squid issue, collecting a great deal of information
cephalopod emerged, in combination with the whale, on recent sightings and beachings. In 1847 he delivered a
In as the "island beast" -a monster so enormous that paper on the subject to the Society of Scandinavian Natural-
unwitting mariners would mistakenly land on it, only ists. Steenstrup's reputation had already suffered greatly
to discover, much to their dismay, that their island was from an earlier error he had made, denying the coexistence
moving. The Scandinavian counterpart, the Kraken, was of early humans and the woolly mammoth, and he might
first mentioned in a manuscript around AD 1000 and con- well have shared Denys de Montfort's ignominious end. But
many centuries.
tinued to figure in Norse legend for luck was with him. Scientifically acceptable evidence began
One particularly imaginative Norse tale was of a bish- to accumulate, and Steenstrup obtained the enormous
0p who spotted an island he had never seen before and had pharynx and beak of a giant squid that had washed up on a
his men row him there. He put ashore and celebrated an Danish beach in 1853. At last, in 1857, he was able to pub-
entire Masi to consecrate the new land. When he left, he lish a scientific description of Architeuthis dux, as the crea-
ized to see the Island vanish ture was named.
•
- in 1752, another Scandinavian bishop Although the giant squid had acquired an official title,

rkonsi rs. In his Natural His some scientists continued to question its existence. Then
:'
|
hop of Ber- came a sensational but reliable sighting. On November 30,
ts I ! iKit. and lull of arms, 1861 , the French gunboat Alecton spotted a giant squid near

22
A villager from Comoro Island, off the coast of Mozambique, displays Tickle, Newfoundland, in 1878. On November 2, Stephen
a coelacanth. Until one was caught in 1 938, the ancient fish had been
presumed extinct for 70 million years. The find prompted scientists Sperring and two companions were out fishing when they
to wonder what other living relicts might be swimming in the oceans. saw a massive object close to the shore. Assuming that it

was part of a shipwreck, they approached— only to discover

Teneriffe, in the Canary Islands. The commander, Lieuten- a thrashing, glassy-eyed squid, aground in the shallow wa-
ant Frederic Marie Bouyer, decided to capture it. His men ters of an ebb tide. The three men hooked the disabled
shot at the beast, but to no avail. After a long struggle, they beast with a grapnel and towed it to shore, where they tied

managed to harpoon it and slip a rope around it. However, it to a tree to keep it from washing back out to sea. The
as they tried to haul the body aboard, it broke apart; all but magnificent specimen had a twenty-foot body and a thirty-

the end of the tail fell back into the water. When the Alecton five-foot tentacle, giving it an overall length of fifty-five feet.

reached Teneriffe, Bouyer showed the tail to the French Its eyes are thought to have measured eighteen inches
consul and made an official report to the navy. A month across, its suckers four inches. The men hacked it up for

later a paper on the incident was presented to the French dog food, but not before it was examined by a local clergy-
Academy of Sciences. Some hard-core skeptics remained man, Moses Harvey, who attested to the discovery in a let-

unconvinced, but in the 1870s so much evidence turned up ter to a Boston newspaper.
on the beaches of Newfoundland and Labrador that there The oceans may conceal squid several times the size

could no longer be any doubt of the giant squid's existence. of the Thimble Tickle monster. Eighteen-inch sucker scars
For unknown reasons, a large number of the creatures be- on whale carcasses seem to indicate the existence of squid

gan to die and wash ashore. Some wound up as dog food or more than 120 feet in length. But the evidence is unclear,

fish bait, but science got its share. since scars grow same time a whale grows.
at the

The largest of these squid ever recognized by science If acceptance of the giant squid was a long time in

was the behemoth that appeared near the beach of Thimble coming, progress has been far slower and more stubborn in

23
the case of its cousin, the elusive giant octopus. Indeed, we may never
be able to determine which— if any— of the Kraken-
squid tales and sightings actually involved octo-
puses. The fact remains that, to date, the entire
body of physical evidence consists of a single find—
rejected in its day, forgotten for about half
a century, finally identified in the 1 950s, and yet
to receive universal recognition.

The chance discovery took place

if. on November 30, 1896, when

two boys cycling on Anastasia
Beach, near St. Augustine, Flori-
da, came upon a partially bur-
ied, gargantuan carcass. Dr. De-
Witt Webb, a physician with an
avid interest in natural history,
examined the badly decom-
posed body and concluded that
it was a giant octopus. The ex-
posed part alone was twenty-
three feet long and eighteen feet

wide; fragments of the arms,

which were discovered a few
days later, measured up to
thirty- two feet in length.

Webb wrote to several sci-

entists about the find, and one
of his letters reached a noted
cephalopod expert, Yale profes-
sor A. E. Verrill. Without actually
seeing the remains, Verrill im-
mediately identified the creature
as a squid. However, on the ba-

French naturalist-artist Pierre

Denys de Montfort's penchant for sen-
sationalism magnifies an octopus to
unbelievably colossal size as it attacks
a hapless ship. He apparently based
his illustration on a story early sailors
told of an encounter with a large
sea creature off the coast of Angola.
 Amateur naturalist DeWitt Webb poses in 1 896 with what
he concluded was the remains of a giant octopus. Webb had used ropes to haul
the carcass onto the beach again after it had washed out to sea.

sis of further information and photographs, he changed his sonian tissues, which he examined along with cuttings from
mind, publishing articles that described and officially known octopuses and squid. At first, he could not discern
named Octopus giganteus. By his calculations, the creature any cellular structure at all. However, when examined un-
had tentacles between seventy-five and 100 feet long. But der polarized light, the connective tissues revealed distinct
then, after examining tissue samples Webb had cut from the structural differences. Gennaro found that the pattern of the
mantle and body, Verrill changed his mind yet again, re- St. Augustine sample was unlike that of any known whale
tracting his identification and declaring the tissue to be or squid but was quite similar, though not identical, to that

from the head and nose of a whale. of known octopuses. More recently, Roy P. Mackal, a bio-
The matter was laid to rest until one day in 1957, chemist with a wide-ranging interest in cryptozoology, has
when Forrest GlenWood, a marine biologist at Marineland performed amino-acid analyses reinforcing the theory that
of Florida, came across an old clipping that told of the St. the St. Augustine monster was an octopus.
Augustine monster. Intrigued, he began to research the Although these findings have been questioned or ig-

subject, digging up old photos, drawings, articles, and let- nored by many authorities, Wood and a few other experts
ters. He then discovered that the Smithsonian I istitution in continue to believe that the giant octopus lives somewhere
Washington still had samples of the preserved issue. At this in the deep Bahamian waters, perhaps near Andros Island,

point Wood sought help from his friend, Joseph F. Gennaro, where rumors of such a creature abound. Diving expedi-
c tions to depths of 200 have failed to turn up any evi-
Jr., a cell biologist then at the University of iorida. feet

Gennaro was able to obtain cuttings :rom the Smith- dence of giant octopuses there, but searchers believe that

25
they may still be lurking in the deeper waters of the nearby ster on a 1734 voyage to Greenland, and his subsequent

trench known as the Tongue of the Ocean-or perhaps off description of the creature was remarkable for its sober,

the west coast of Bermuda. matter-of-fact tone.

To some cryptozoologists, the scattered evidence of As portrayed in Egede's Description of Greenland, the

the giant octopus and the firm reality of the giant squid have sea serpent was certainly very large and unusual, but it was
opened up endless new prospects. If these once-mythical no archetypal, fire-breathing, mariner-eating monster. The
monsters really exist, they ask, then is the legendary sea animal's head reached the top of the mast, but did not tow-

serpent really so far beyond the realm of possibility? er above or devour it. The body was as broad as the ship
and three or four times as long. The minister described the
Sea serpents have long inspired fascination, terror— and creature as having paddlelike paws and a long, pointed

snorts of derision. Their association with myth, religious snout and wrote that it spouted "like a whale-fish." The
symbolism, sensationalism, and naive credulity has largely body was said to be covered with a carapace of shellwork,
consigned these creatures to scientific exile. However, dur- not scales; the lower portion was serpentine in shape, with

ing the eighteenth century-the Age of Enlightenment-a the tail a "ship's length distant from the bulkiest part of the

great increase in travel, trade, and intellectual inquiry pro- body." All in all, it seemed to be a description meant to in-

duced a significant change in the quality of testimony. form and not to thrill. Yet even so, the skeptics could not
Probably the first of the modern eyewitnesses was the accept it at face value.

Scandinavian missionary Hans Egede, known as the Apos- In the early nineteenth century, the sea serpent did
tle of Greenland. A reputable, respected minister, he had a have a brief but glorious moment of respectability. Between
sharp eye for detail, an intense interest in natural history, August 6 and 23 of 1817, as many as a hundred reputable
and a no-nonsense attitude-in short, the qualities of an ex- witnesses sighted an enormous marine monster frolicking
cellent witness. Egede reported that he sighted a sea mon- in or near the harbor in Gloucester, Massachusetts. For a

Shown in a nineteenth-centuiy engraving, the first sea serpent

reported in the New World glides through the waters off Cape Ann, Massachusetts,
in 1 639. The monster supposedly slithered ashore and coiled itself.

26
 In August 1817, a broadside
published in Boston carried an
electrifying story— a sea serpent
had been seen repeatedly in
Gloucester Harbor on Cape Ann,
not farfrom the site where a
similar creature had appeared
some 180 years before.
The alarm was first raised by
two women who reportedly saw
the monster enter the harbor
on August 6. Some people
believed the women had mis-
taken a line of sharks or
porpoises for a sea serpent, but
several fishermen soon cor-
roborated their story. Over the
course of three weeks, dozens
of witnesses saw a round,
multihumped serpent SO to
100 feet long moving rapidly
through the water. At month's
end it vanished, although
scattered sightings occurred
A Monstrous s^ a
over the next three years.

gest
*"»ja«t made
^T «*» in Jh
**»«*,
ne ,.;„.

Cape W,
its .
1m> „ ia " ee
! '" G1 ™- Hart our

Kespect aj,lc Citi ZCUs .

I He bdSS'hJ 5? ,,r>en * cen

>y 1'undred, of „p„ ,

n "d Wand, " , ,

Astern Point
dv ,["" P°. a S V KK . ;"»
! lions are Wm. .•• ' so '« 100 fool li-

* &ifc#.1^^^
tar
nea«l, a* lar-je
1 6
" ,,,e
*M
°'l of Water
H' Weaw
as Hie )i,4i /.-
like „,.„
„fl
Bnd is pa H K- ,,";?:
£^^> *-&
'T'
.
,n lentil,.

abo «"
/•];.

soS
feet

« buoys on
f
ft be hi >(,;"?'*resembles
P"rt black
J a." lJ
,'i
'* ,l]cr

n net ronr. , , a slrint

casta. His back eastnnS^waier

I *•£ made, ,rkho,,t
is b/aclb v •

.,„.,. '/; J^PJ* al.cmpu hare

^ and experienced -,„„,''. th ad»cntur0( t, = a jlo
, ri

aft^pJungcd e ""niediafeiv
*» disttL m! *"* a ^ h "••° feet?
| fbnrt me
inlo (he «n ,tr
.,!
aml J* ,

g*
b"
>«>an
?erpeni,
" that
«!,„

.1
,,

l;u
1Vs
W
affijlT
„
ns ""'fv
,
,
'
,,a, 1 '
'
len
ui,,,i "

" hi te ami
w
3u rec
lyS
f
I
|
§
I
li

pereons are eropj

,

oye( ,
after „l,i ,

J,
'

1
0M»PPearcd for.

;'
1 D,
S lrt - A number of

upon a verv ^" rpo " e " f Pre vin-

[ numerous shoal rf fc

">ga better opnorluniA. ll'' " f " ,n *•»•«,

T affonl

appeared ft CeS,er
before been
ib
re n
em even Sla,,?
ofle^"r ""W'lnde '
'
,!,i

Uian bad
" £
^asfirsl *, bvSE ° Ca
/rAn,2" Harbour
W *g* J
, t -,-„l ( d

" " r1
» «« then e^&boUoy"dt' ! S dj b„,
'ensftb,
PPen an enorn,o
B «sed
and as bfe ,o

i„ s)le „.
.I S^H-
? .,

"' oulb'
J
and are of
opinion
I
' as 'SO feci
Tbey ȣ'
(ha!
>
;,,

b"
-Aug. 23, )«]
7
* "'' Dn °ns>>'n-Slrcct.
Boston

27
 A raging sea serpent menaces the American
schooner Sally on December 1 7, 1819.
The attack, which allegedly took place off
Long Island, was one of several brushes
with sea monsters reported by Americans
that year. Most involved a beast
said to have between thirteen and fifteen
"bunches, " or humps, on its back.

time skepticism all but disappeared; scientists throughout had come to lay eggs on shore. At one point, independent
the world followed the story with avid interest. witnesses reported seeing it half on and half off the sandy
On August 14 alone, the monster appeared to a group beach of the harbor, which lent credence to the theory. No
of twenty to thirty people, among them the Gloucester jus- eggs ever turned up, but two boys found a three-foot crea-
tice of the peace, Lonson Nash. That same day several ture that looked like a black snake with humps on its back.

boats went out in active pursuit, and late in the afternoon, a The society, sure of its egg-laying theory, was delighted

ship's carpenter, Matthew Gaffney, spotted "the strange with this apparent proof— the "baby sea serpent." The
marine animal, resembling a serpent." He got to within thir- members examined and dissected it, then christened it Sco-
ty feet of it, took careful aim with a rifle, and fired directly at liophis atlanticus, or Atlantic Humped Snake, publishing a
the head. An experienced marksman, Gaffney thought he long report on the subject.
must have hit it, but the serpent appeared to be unharmed. greeted the find with extreme skepticism,
It veered sharply toward the boat, and for a minute the men Europe
and in little time a French zoologist, Charles-
feared that the creature would attack. Instead, it simply Alexandre Lesueur, had determined that the Scolio-
sank like a stone, passed under the craft, and surfaced on phis was just what it appeared to be: a black snake
the other side, almost a hundred yards away. There it con- with a spine deformed by disease or injury. The in-
tinued to play, apparently heedless of the hunters. ternational scientific community had a great laugh at the
Gaffney later described the monster as probably Linnaean Society's expense, and the whole Gloucester Har-
smooth skinned and certainly dark in color, with a white bor episode was discredited— damaging the case for other
throat and belly. It was huge-at least forty feet long-and alleged sea serpents. Similar unidentified marine creatures
its head was the size of "a four-gallon keg." Moving verti- continued to appear off the coasts of New England and
cally, "like a caterpillar," it was speeding along at between Canada, but it would be many years before people would
twenty and thirty miles per hour. again take them seriously.
This and other eyewitness accounts were the result of
an intensive investigation by a committee of the Linnaean The Linnaean Society's blunder was a serious but honest
Society of New England. Under the committee's direction, error. However, other "errors" regarding sea serpents have
Justice of the Peace Nash issued a twenty-five-item ques- been far less honest. Over the years, a number of deliberate
tionnaire and took a number of depositions from firsthand sea-serpent hoaxes have been foisted upon a credulous
witnesses only. The majority of the reports agreed in es- public. Whether their perpetrators were indulging in per-
sence with Gaffney's description, and they provided addi- sonal fantasies, seeking attention, playing practical jokes,
tion. ii Information Some of the other witnesses noted that or attempting to cash in on serious scientific endeavor,
the creature had a many-humped back (with as many as ten most of the hoaxes were too farfetched or contradictory to
humps) ,md that it moved by undulating vertically. The hold up under scrutiny. The most spectacular and success-
held six to twelve m the water, resembled ful of the schemes was engineered by a German collector
or turtle- named Albert Koch, who opened an exhibit of a supposed
Modem authorities agr< ster monster sea-serpent skeleton in 1845 and fleeced gullible spectators
nal indulate ver- on two continents before his exposure as a fraud (page 30).
;
it down n< Such hoaxes soured serious-minded people on the
iware <>i th< thai the subject of sea serpents But in 1848, a sighting by several
n il id that it officers in the British navy shook the foundations of British

28
29
 An Artful Patchwork Serpen!

In 1 845, New Yorkers drawn by news American waters. Many viewers went cleverly, but not cleverly enough to

of a scientific sensation flocked to away satisfied that they had seen fool an expert eye.
Broadway's Apollo Saloon. There, for scientific proof of marine monsters. Angrily denying Wyman 's conclu-
the admission price of twenty-five Unfortunately for Koch, the Harvard- sion, Koch packed up his serpent and
cents, they could examine a 1 14-foot- educated anatomist Jeffries Wyman took it to his native Europe, where he
long skeleton that was, according to visited the exhibit. After carefully mounted his exhibit in city after city.
sometime archaeologist and show inspecting the skeleton, he announced His reputation had preceded him,
organizer Albert Koch, the remains of that it was a fraud. He noted that its however, and he was a laughingstock
an extinct marine reptile he had dug teeth had the double roots characteris- among European scientists. In the end,
up on expedition to Alabama. With its tic of mammals but not of reptiles though, his brazen hoax turned out to
slender form, undulating backbone, and went on to demonstrate that be of some scholarly interest after all.

and threateningly reared head, Koch's Koch's wonder was actually a In 1847, the king of Prussia bought
creature bore a remarkable resem- composite of several specimens of an Koch's fraudulent skeleton and added
blance to the sea serpents that had extinct whale, the zeuglodon. Koch it to the collection of Berlin's Royal
been reported for two centuries in had combined a jumble of bones Anatomical Museum.
 Apparently oblivious to the frigate Daedalus, a sea serpent passes
under the ship's stem on a cloudy south Atlantic afternoon in August 1848. This
engraving is based on a drawing commissioned by Captain Peter
M'Quhae, one of seven eyewitnesses.

and European skepticism. On August 6, HMS Daedalus was reports of the sighting appeared in the London Times, the
cutting through the South Atlantic waters near the Cape lords of the Admiralty demanded a full account. M'Quhae
of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, when a mid- wrote a detailed official report, which also appeared in the

shipman spotted something advancing rapidly toward newspapers. Uproar ensued. While the sighting had been
the vessel. He immediately informed the ship's officers, and fairly typical, as sightings go, the credibility of the witnesses
a total of seven men, including Captain Peter M'Quhae, got was unique. M'Quhae and his fellow officers commanded
a good view of what they all described as a gigantic sea respect; the British, long used to thinking of the sea serpent
serpent.The visible portion of the creature alone measured as a figment of gullible imaginations, could not so easily
more than sixty feet in length, they reported, but it appeared dismiss the Daedalus monster. Having little choice but to
to be only about fifteen inches in diameter. Its color was accept the sincerity of the report, the doubters fell back on
dark brown, with yellowish white at the throat, and it had their mistaken-identity arguments, and the controversy
some sort of mane, like a bunch of seaweed, on its back. raged in the press for some time.

Oddly enough, though moving at twelve to fifteen miles per Implicit in every such debate of that era was a basic
hour, it exhibited neither vertical nor horizontal undula- indictment of the witnesses themselves. Even if their repu-

tion -nor any other visible means of propulsion. "Appar- tations were above reproach, their scientific capabilities

ently on some determined purpose," it held its serpentlike were not. Mariners, priests, and ordinary travelers were
head a constant four feet above the surface and never devi- deemed too unschooled in the principles of scientific obser-

ated from its course. vation to be able to judge the validity of what they were
When the Daedalus returned home to Plymouth and seeing. And despite centuries of reported sightings around

31
 On June 2, 1877, the officers and crew ofH. M. S. Osborne saw
what they described as a monster in calm waters off northern Sicily. One witness
sketched the row offins that first caught his eye (left) and a rear
view of the creature's head, shoulders, and flippers.

the world, no trained scientist had ever caught so much as a exceptions. The myth-enshrouded monster has almost al-

glimpse of a sea monster. But this line of argument crum- ways brought ridicule upon its chroniclers and witnesses,
bled in 1905, when two respected naturalists, fellows of the many of whom have forever after rued the day they report-
London Zoological Society, sighted a huge, unidentified ed a sighting. It is impossible to estimate how many ac-
marine creature counts have been lost when observers convinced them-
On December 7 of that year, naturalists E. G. B. selves that they had had too much sun or one drink too
Meade-Waldo and Michael J. Nicoll were cruising off Para- many-or simply did not want to be ridiculed. The story is

hiba, Brazil, aboard the Earl of Crawford's yacht Valhalla told of one sea captain who actually refused even to look at
when Meade-Waldo noticed a large, six-foot-long "fin or a sea serpent. He was having lunch in his cabin when the
frill" in the water about a hundred yards from the boat. officer of the watch summoned him to the bridge to view a
Looking more closely, he could see a large body beneath strange beast. The captain refused to go, refused even to
the surface Just as he got out his binoculars, the scientist peek out a porthole. "Had I said that I had seen the sea
reported, a huge head and neck rose up out of the water. serpent," he explained, "I would have been considered a
The visible p< >rti< >n of the neck alone was seven to eight feet warranted liar all my life."

long and as thick as "a slight man's body"; the head was
about the same thickness and resembled a turtle's, as did With the advent of powered vessels to take the place of sail-
the eye Both head and neck were dark brown on top, whit- ing ships, reports of unknown or unidentified animals spot-
ish underneath ted on the high seas began to taper off. No longer at the
Nicoll's account ol the beast was similar to Meade- mercy of whimsical winds and ocean currents, captains
Waldo's, with one Important addition His general impres- could steer their courses along established shipping lanes-
sion w.is ol a mammal, not a reptile, although he admitted and it is likely, say some cryptozoologists, that sea serpents
thai tie could not be absolutely Main and the like may stay away from these heavily traveled ar-
Although these reports do not (.litter markedly from eas and thus avoid detection. Surely the clatter of engines
itrn i i
i
monstei sightings thi teadiiy would provide such creatures -if they exist- with ample
although nrydid not turn warning of the presence of possible danger. In the words of
m Meade Wal nd nkoH the renowned Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl: "We

32
usually plow across [the sea] with roaring engines and pis- and reported the monster, enhancing its fame. Their de-
ton strokes, with the water foaming round our bow. Then scriptions were so consistent that one interviewer com-
we come back and say that there is nothing to see far out mented, "It was almost as though a recording had been

on the ocean." Thus, it is not so surprising that most mod- made and each man played the same record." However, the
ern sightings appear to take place from the shore or from writer added, "these men were all interviewed separately
small boats near the shoreline. and none of them knew that I had talked to anyone else
For some reason, the California coast seems to be es- about the San Clemente monster." A skeptic might well
pecially hospitable to modern monsters. In addition to the wonder whether the club members had spent hour upon
unidentified creatures spotted in 1983 at Stinson Beach and hour discussing the biggest fish story of them all, until their

Costa Mesa, Cape San Martin has had a mystery visitor descriptions melded into a single composite version— but

named Bobo, Monterey has had one dubbed the Old Man, this question remains unanswered.
and San Clemente has had its San Clemente monster— the At some time between 1914 and 1919, Ralph Bandini,
most famous of them all. secretary of the club, saw the monster once, briefly and
First appearing between 1914 and 1919, this creature from a great distance. But in 1920 he got a relatively close
was sighted many times in the warm waters of the Outer look at it. As described in Bandini's 1932 book, Tight Lines,
Santa Barbara Channel, between San Clemente and Santa the creature had several remarkable features: a dark color;
Catalina islands. Over the years members of the Tuna Club, a long, thick, columnar neck; a mane that looked like fine

the first American big-game fishing club, often observed seaweed or coarse hair; and enormous, protuberant eyes.

The neck and head stood ten

feet out of the water and
were five or six feet in diame-
ter. The round, bulging eyes
were a good twelve inches in

diameter— and horrifyingly

dull and lifeless. Like so many

other supposed sea serpents,

this one submerged by sink-
ing straight down. Having
viewed only its head and

neck, Bandini had to guess at

its total size; he judged the
creature to be larger than the

Naturalist Michael J. Nicoll and

some colleagues glimpsed this
long-necked, large-finned animal
from a ship off Brazil one morning
in 1 905. Spotted again the fol-
lowing moonlit night by three crew
members, the creature was,
Nicoll asserted, an example of the
"great sea-serpent" that had
been reported so frequently.

33
 Baleful eyes peer upward from an enor-
mous dark form that French photographer
Robert Le Serrec claimed was a wounded
sea serpent he happened upon while boating
in shallow Australian waters in 1964. The
odd placement of the eyes, which is unlike
that of any known reptile, mammal,
orfish —along with Le Serrec's peculiar
story and shady reputation— led in-
vestigators to brand his story a hoax.

largest whale, for the waves did not cause it to move, as surface. De Jong at first thought it was a large, twisted tree

they would a whale. trunk, but it soon became evident that this was some sort of

During World War II, most mariners were more con- monstrous creature— a creature shaped like a giant tadpole

cerned with enemy vessels than with sea serpents, and the with an enormous head and tapering, serpentine body. Le
creatures seem to have dropped out of sight for the duration Serrec took some still photos and then, circling his motor-
of hostilities. The early postwar years were also relatively boat gradually closer, began to film it with a movie camera.
quiet ones for sea serpents, which had all but disappeared As the boat drew near, the witnesses could make out a five-

from the news except as occasional, lighthearted space fill- foot-long wound gouged open on the motionless animal's

ers Most people, if they thought about the creatures at all, back and could more clearly see the broad head, which
thought of them as quaint mariners' folklore or crackpots' greatly resembled a snake's.

hallucinations But then, at the end of 1947, came a report At this point the Le Serrec children became extremely
that a Grace Lines steamer, the Santa Clara, had run over a frightened. The adults took the youngsters back to shore in

sea serpent, apparently injuring it severely. the dinghy, then continued their observation of the beast.
before noon on December 30, the ship was
little Since it remained inert, apparently seriously injured or per-
moving uneventfully through calm waters 118 haps even dead, they ventured still closer, noting two whit-

A
officers
miles off Cape Lookout, North Carolina,
suddenly a huge serpent's head seemed to rear up
just thirty feet

were on the bridge

had a close look at the creature
from the bow. Three of the ship's
at the time, and
as they passed over
all three
it.
when

men
In an
ish

ularly

to
eyes— located strangely on the top of the head— and

ing that
spaced bands of brown along the amazing length of
the black body.

if it did
The Le Serrecs and de Jong thought of trying
provoke the creature into moving but reconsidered,
move, it might smash the boat. Neverthe-
reg-

fear-

instant they had left it behind, thrashing wildly in the ves- men decided to dive for a better look, the photog-
less, the

sel's churning wake. They described an enormous beast rapher armed with an underwater camera and his
with a head two feet across and five feet in length and a companion with an underwater rifle.

cylindrical body about three feet wide. The creature ap- Beneath the surface the water was murkier than it had
peared to be smooth skinned and was dark brown. appeared, and the divers could not get a clear view until
Once more, reputable eyewitnesses had given a de- they were within twenty feet of the monster. It was truly
tailed description that seemed consistent with previous, gigantic -seventy-five to eighty feet long, with four-foot-
similar testimony But until the 1960s, the only evidence for wide jaws and two-inch eyes that at close range turned out
sea monster sightings remained just that: the subjective to be pale green. Suddenly, as Le Serrec began filming, the
verbal accounts of those who said they had seen the crea- beast began to open and half-close its cavernous jaws "in a
Then, in early 1965. proof seemed to be at hand. A menacing manner" and to turn slowly toward the men. Be-
h photographer named Robert Le Serrec reported that cause it was clearly incapacitated, the photographer kept
he had taken the first real photographs of a sea serpent. on filming for a short time before he and his friend made
According to Le Serrec's sti iry his encounter occurred their es .ape. Back aboard the boat, they discovered that the
lust oft the COatt of Queensland A n December 12, creature iad disappeared. Le Serrec's wife had seen it swim
he said, i How waters of out to sea, undulating horizontally-a motion typical of an
mall boat with hi mend, eel or a reptile, not a mammal.
'
hi', wile c BU age, pecu- On February 4, 1965, Le Serrec released his story, in-
l^tloni i

(ff| the stantly stirring up worldwide interest -and, of course, skep-

34
35
 From Parson's Beach in Cornwall,
England, Anthony "Doc" Shiels
points toward a spot in
(left)
Falmouth Bay where he says he
saw the sea serpent Morgawr
in 1976. The same year, a
woman known only as Mary F.
allegedly took a photograph
of this famous monster (below).
Some investigators thought
her picture genuine, but she
aroused suspicion by refusing
to give her full name or address
and failing to submit the neg-
ative for examination.

36
ticism. This time, even such an adventurous cryptozoologist considered vague, inconsistent, and generally far-fetched.
as the Scottish-born Ivan T. Sanderson, an author and nat- In 1975, a new flurry of sightings began, and in Febru-
uralist with a wide-ranging interest in unusual wildlife, had ary of the following year, a woman publicly identified only
grave doubts. Although Le Serrec's color photographs as Mary F. produced a photograph. Accompanying the pic-
seemed genuine enough, his much-touted movies did not ture was a description of a fifteen- to eighteen-foot creature
turn up for viewing by independent investigators, and ru- that looked to the photographer "like an elephant waving
mor had it that they were hopelessly blurred and virtually its trunk, but the trunk was a long neck with a small head
useless. The sighting could not be explained on the basis of on the end, like a snake's head." It was humpbacked, with
any known phenomenon, and investigators had to consider multiple humps that moved "in a funny way," and had dark
the definite possibility of an intentional hoax. Especially brown or black skin, "like a sea-lion's." The photograph
suspect, in the opinion of French-born cryptozoologist showed no obvious signs of falsification, but the negative
Bernard Heuvelmans, were the unique positioning of the was never submitted for examination.
animal's eyes, the handy removal of the children, who professional magician and carnival entertainer
might have revealed the ruse, and the contradictory fact named Anthony "Doc" Shiels was impressed by
that the

himself.
men were
boat but not to approach
afraid to

it
provoke the creature from the
underwater.
Further disturbing facts emerged concerning Le Serrec
He was wanted by
1960, with a lien on his yacht
Interpol for leaving France, in

and for absconding with funds

A theMorgawr story and began to investigate the
sightings.

man, however,
Because of his background as a show-
Shiels's findings

garded as highly questionable. Shiels believes that sea

monsters are not merely unknown animals but beings that
have been re-

put up by would-be sailing companions, whom he left be- can be summoned through such means as witches' incan-
hind. Le Serrec had reportedly told them that he had an idea tations and telepathy. In fact, on Easter of 1976 three self-

for bringing in a great deal of money— something "to do proclaimed witches named Psyche, Vivienne, and Amanda
with the sea serpent." attempted unsuccessfully to call up Morgawr by swimming
When he finally returned to France in 1966, Le Serrec naked in Falmouth Bay. But in November of 1980, Shiels's
received a six-month jail sentence. Yet several months after daughter Kate claimed to have succeeded by using the
his conviction, the magazine Paris Match printed his color same technique.

photograph of the supposed sea serpent, attesting to the Shiels says he has seen the creature himself on sever-
photographer's reliability and misquoting two experts- al occasions-once, in 1976, when he reportedly conjured it

Sanderson and a professor named Paul Budker-in support up in the company of David Clark, editor of Cornish Life

of the Le Serrec claim. Although Paris Match did not print a magazine and a skeptic before the sighting. Since 1976,

retraction, a rival publication subsequently exposed the many people— including bankers, an art historian, fisher-
sighting as a hoax. men, and members of a British Broadcasting Corporation
Not long afterward, photography once again figured in film crew— have testified to seeing Morgawr.

the case for a sea serpent in Britain's Falmouth Bay-a leg- Among the eyewitnesses were Sheila Bird, author of
endary Cornish beast that seems to have bridged the ages Bygone Falmouth, and her brother, Australian scientist Eric

tobecome one of the most famous of modern monsters. Bird, who was visiting her at the time. On the evening of

Morgawr-the old Cornish word for "sea giant" -allegedly July 10, 1985, the two were relaxing atop a cliff west of Port-
appeared once in 1876 and at least twice early in this cen- scatho, when Eric jumped up, startled. In the water below
tury, but the witnesses' subjective verba! descriptions were was a large, mottled gray creature with a long neck, small

37
World-renowned cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans has written
widely In the field. Among his books is In the Wake of the Sea-
Serpents, a definitive study of reported sightings of sea creatures
from ancient times to the present.
single or perhaps multiple
humps. Morgawr is small for
a sea serpent; like Bird, most
witnesses have judged it to be
between twelve and twenty
feet long, although one report
indicates a monster more
than twice that length.
North America has also
had its share of recent sight-
ings, and not just on the Cali-

fornia coast. For example,

tourists and natives have re-

peatedly reported seeing Cad-

dy, the so-called Vancouver
Island monster— probably the
northern counterpart of the
maned San Clemente sea ser-
pent. In 1969, a pair of marine

scientists at the University of

British Columbia — oceanog-

rapher Paul H. LeBlond and
biologist John Sibert —
launched a research project
to ferret out unreported sight-
head, and huge hump. From their elevated vantage point, ings of sea monsters in the area. The scientists prepared a

the brother and sister could also see a long, muscular tail questionnaire and sent it to all the newspapers on the Brit-

beneath the surface of the water. The tail was about the ish Columbia coast, as well as to marinas, fishing clubs, and
same length as the body, and the creature appeared to be lighthouse keepers. Responses quickly began arriving.
ueen to twenty feet long in all. As the witnesses Typical of the matter-of-fact eyewitness stories Le-
looked on in awe, Morgawr moved rapidly but regally Blond and Sibert received was one sent by a woman identi-

through the water, its head held high, then suddenly sub- fied as Mrs. E. Stout, of Klamath Falls, Oregon. In March of
merged, dropping like a si id waited a month 1961, Mrs. Stout testified, she was walking with her sister-

and a half to re: rl the sigh! iken place just in-law and their two preschool-age sons along the shore of
le was laun. hlng her b< n j that her ac- the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which divides Washington State
trued .1- a and British Columbia. The strollers were watching a freight-

numerous i nre not er in the channel, and as the ship moved away, they could
see what appeared to be a tree limb in the water. Suddenly
•
•
i
onslSte 'vide a
',! creatu and the "limb disappeared, almost instantly emerging again

36
 closer to them. They realized with amazement that it was
some kind of strange sea creature. Mrs. Stout later de-
scribed it as having a large head, a six-foot-long neck with a
Cases oi Mistaken Idennly floppy mane, and three humps; its only obvious body move-
ment was the graceful lowering and raising of the neck and
It is not wholly impossible that sea serpents are real
beasts that have somehow eluded scientific detection.
the swiveling of the head. The monster glided forward with
A somewhat stronger possibility is that an eyewitness swanlike smoothness and submerged and then came up
may have encountered a living fossil— the remnant of "almost perpendicularly." Except for the humps, Mrs. Stout
a species erroneously thought to have died out
claimed, it "resembled pictures of the herbivorous, marsh-
millions of years ago. The most likely explanation of
all is what is described as a monster is actually a
that living dinosaurs."

rarely seen but well-documented marine animal, such At first, she reported, its head was turned away, as if

as a blue whale. Pictured below are five known was watching

the creature the departing freighter. Then it
animals, ancient and modern, that resemble various
sank once again, resurfacing even nearer the witnesses.
reported sea monsters.
Mrs. Stout's son became fearful and started to cry. The
creature, apparently aware of the witnesses, disappeared
again and next reappeared a little farther away. Mrs. Stout
reassured her son, telling him the creature was obviously
wary of them, as indeed it seemed to be.

The ancient zeuglodon was up to seventy feet.

LeBlond and Sibert published the results of their study
in 1973. All told, twenty-three apparently legitimate first-

hand accounts emerged-an impressive number, consider-

ing the limited area encompassed by the study.
The oaiflsh'sfln resembles a mane.
the other side of the continent, meanwhile, res-

On idents of the Chesapeake

porting sporadic appearances of the bay's native
monster, known
Bay area had been

as Chessie, since the nineteenth

re-

The huge whale shark is harmless.

century. The dark, serpentine creature began
showing up quite regularly in the mid-1960s and achieved
stardom of sorts in 1982, when it appeared in a three-

minute videotape shot by a Marylander named Robert Frew.

On May 21 of that year, Frew and his wife, Karen,

were entertaining at their Kent Island home, overlooking

The blue whale is the largest known animal.
the bay. At around seven in the evening, the Frews and their

guests spotted the monster in shallow, clear water about

200 yards from the house. The host first watched with bin-
oculars, then grabbed his video camera and started shoot-

ing from his bedroom window. The monster headed toward

The two-ton manta ray has hornlike fins. a group of swimmers, continually breaking the surface of
the water as it moved forward. The onlookers called out to

39
warn the swimmers, who apparently could not hear the whale. But as he approached it, he discovered that it was
shouts. The creature dived and swam beneath the bathers, like no whale he had ever seen. The putrefying monstrosity
who did not notice it even when it appeared on the other had several fins, or arms, and when Peace lifted the largest

side of them. The Frews estimated that the dark brown, one with his boat hook, he found that it was surrounded by
hump-backed animal was thirty to thirty-five feet long and a a row of ten-inch bristles.

foot in diameter. However, as it showed only part of its body About ten days later, the carcass washed onto the

each time it surfaced, it was hard to guess the exact size. shore during a storm, and Peace and two other local men
had high hopes for Robert Frew's began to examine the strange remains in earnest, even
Cryptozoologists
videotape, believing that at last they would find real measuring various parts of the body. The cartilaginous skel-
evidence of a sea serpent's existence, and on Au- eton was around fifty-five feet long, with a small head, long
gust 20, seven scientists affiliated with the Smithso- neck and tail, bristly mane, and six "paws," each with five

nian Institution met to examine the footage. Herpe- or six "toes." Another storm subsequently scattered the
tologist George Zug, a board member of the International
Society of Cryptozoology who then chaired the institution's
Department of Vertebrate Zoology, hosted the three-hour
meeting. In the end, though, the tape proved inconclusive; it

was blurry, and not enough of the creature was visible

above the water at any one time to give a true indication of

size. The tape sometimes showed an "angular structure,

presumed to be the front end, but there were no eyes, ears,

or mouth." Nevertheless, Zug reported, all the viewers had
"a strong impression of an animate object, certainly not
some kids swimming in a garbage bag" -as one underwa-
ter photographer had suggested. Unfortunately, the scien-
tists were not able to discern what kind of animate object
they were watching.
Once again, the sea serpent seemed to have eluded
technology's grasp. But there remained other bits of evi-
dence to ponder, evidence provided by the sea itself.

Over the centuries, the oceans have deposited many

strange and mysterious remains on the earth's shores. Of
these, perhapsnone was more astonishing or controversial
than the enormous carcass discovered on the rocks off the
Orkney island of Stronsa (now called Stronsay) by a Scot-
tish farmer named John Peace.
On September 26, 1808, Peace was out fishing in his
boat when a large number of birds circling above the rocks
caught his eye Intrigued, he went to investigate. At first he
thought that the huge lump attracting the birds was a dead

A hulking carcass with walruslike

tusks draws curious townspeople to
a beach at Ataka, Egypt. Cast up
by a three day gale In the Gulf of Suez
In January V50, the creature was
I

not positively iilrntified by experts.

 A group of onlookers maintains
a prudent distance from a
decomposing carcass found on
a beach in Santa Cruz, Califor-
nia, in 1 925. It appeared at
first to be a monstrous animal
with a thirty-foot-long neck, a
huge head, and a ducklike
beak, but biologists who later
examined the skull conclud-
ed that it was the remains of
an extremely rare beaked
whale from the North Pacific.

41
badly decomposed carcass, but a local artist was able to Everard Home obtained all the information, the affidavits,

draw sketches under the direction of the original witnesses. and some pieces of the carcass. Home, despite a reputation
Eventually, a description of the beast reached Patrick marred by charges of plagiarism, was something of an ex-
Neill, secretary of the Wernerian Natural History Society in pert on the huge fish known as the basking shark, and he

Edinburgh. Neill declared without hesitation that this was quickly determined that the Stronsa beast was just that. De-
the kind of creature described centuries before by the Scan- composition, he believed, had created the illusion of the
dinavian witness Hans Egede-a conclusion no doubt influ- long neck and tail, and also of the bristly mane. The six

enced by recently reported sightings of a sea serpent in the "paws" were actually four fins and two claspers, the double

nearby Hebrides. Later, before he had even seen the witnes- reproductive organs of the male shark. Home dismissed as
ses's depositions or the existing bits of physical evidence, error the creature's reported length, too great for any
Neill proposed naming the Stronsa beast Halsydrus (mean- known basking shark, even though the men had taken
ing "sea water-snake") pontoppidani. This he did solely on careful measurements.
the basis of a paper and some drawings by Dr. John Barclay, However correct they may have been, Home's conclu-
a fellow member of the society who had viewed some of the sions angered the Scottish scientists, particularly John Bar-
creature's remains in the Orkneys. clay, who had embarrassed himself with his ill-informed
Eventually, a London surgeon and naturalist named paper on the physiology of the "sea serpent." Barclay

A huge, decomposing carcass netted by the Japanese trawler Zuiyo

Mam in 1977 was photographed (below) and sketched (opposite) before the captain
ordered the intriguing but nasty catch thrown overboard. The
long-necked creature weighed about 4,000 pounds.
published a reply and a coun- potentially great loss to sci-
terattack-revealing even ence. Examining the photo-
more ignorance— but Home graphs and also the sketches
did not deign to answer. The drawn by Michihiko Yano, a
Scottish public, uncertain fishing company executive
who was right, sided with who had been on board at the
Barclay, who had had the last As sketched by a witness on the Zuiyo Maru, this time, the scientists concluded
mysterious sea creature seemed decidedly reptilian inform. But
word -if not the most correct further study indicated that it was probably a basking shark. that the animal was possibly
one. The controversy contin- a plesiosaur, the supposedly
ued for years, and even today some people believe that the long-extinct marine reptile that some experts believe may
Stronsa beast received unjust treatment and perhaps was, have survived to this day. One species is known to have
in fact, a sea serpent. lived off eastern Australia 100 million years ago.

Most modem authorities, however, are convinced that The director general of animal research at the Japa-
Home was essentially correct in his identification. The car- nese National Science Museum, Professor Yoshinori Imai-
tilaginous skeleton was the key clue, since only sharks and zumi, stated that the remains were "not a fish, whale or any
their closest relatives have such a skeleton. All the other other mammal." In fact, he was quite positive that the beast
details fit, as well. Still, according to Bernard Heuvelmans, was a reptile, and most probably a plesiosaur. "This was a
Home may have oversimplified the issue in dismissing the precious and important discovery for human beings," Imai-
creature's length; the Stronsa beast may indeed have been zumi said. "It seems to show that these animals [plesio-

an unknown giant shark. saurs] are not extinct after all. It's impossible for only one to
Whatever the true identity of the Stronsa creature may have survived. There must be a group." However, as if to

be, almost all of the many other unusual strandings exam- underscore the tantalizing nature of the search for physical
ined by scientists over the years have turned out to be de- evidence of the sea serpent, later examination of the data
composed known animals— primarily sharks, whales, or from the Japanese find indicated that the creature was in all

oarfish. A sea serpent has yet to appear, although the car- likelihood a relatively common basking shark rather than
cass held briefly by a crew of Japanese fishermen in 1977 an exotic plesiosaur.
seemed very promising. For all the lack of ironclad physical evidence, the sheer

On April 1 of that year, the Zuiyo Mam, a Japanese weight of eyewitness testimony has convinced many scien-

ship trawling off the coast of Christchurch, New Zealand, tists that sea serpents do exist. But even the believers are
snared a two-ton carcass in its nets. Hauling it up from a not quite sure what to make of these creatures -how to de-

depth of 1 ,000 feet, the fishermen were astonished to dis- fine, explain, and classify them. Theories abound, some-
cover an unidentified thirty-two-foot animal with a long times conflicting, sometimes converging.
neck and tail and four flippers. Unfortunately for crypto-
zoology, the terrible stench and the fatty liquid that came In times past, naturalists tried to fit all sea serpents into a

oozing out onto the deck were even more impressive to the single zoological mold. Today, almost all investigators en-

men, who feared that the animal might spoil their catch of gaged in the search for sea serpents hold that these crea-
fresh fish. And so, after taking measurements and photos, tures are of several different types. The serpent seen near
they threw the mystery beast back into the sea. the yacht Valhalla, for example, no more resembles the San
Japanese paleontologists were appalled to hear of this Clemente monster than an eel does a jellyfish. Neither do

43
modern researchers believe that these animals are actually speed and agility that typify the long-necked sea serpent.
most are probably not even reptiles; fre-
serpents. Indeed, Skeptics, of course, lean toward a variety of known
quent use of the term sea serpent persists merely for the phenomena as explanations for sea-serpent reports. The

sake of tradition and convenience. classic porpoises-jumping-in-a-line explanation dates back

diligent efforts of one man, Bernard Heuvel- to at least 1 803 and continues to this day, although it would

The mans, have gone a long way toward unscrambling

and categorizing reported marine monsters. To be
take considerable synchronization for frolicking porpoises
to create the illusion of undulating coils. Large land snakes,
sure, not every scientist-and not even every cryp- especially pythons, are supposed to account for some sight-

tozoologist, for that matter-agrees with his classi- ings. But even if these snakes were large enough to pass for
fications, but most applaud his exhaustive research. Over sea serpents and adaptable enough to survive northern cli-

the course often years, Heuvelmans collected and analyzed mates, they would still be unable to undulate in a vertical

data on 587 occurrences that he described as "real, appar- plane, as sea monsters are said to do. Another popular ex-

ent or pretended sightings of great unknown sea-animals, planation is that the mystery beast is really an oarfish-a
serpentine in some respect." After eliminating hoaxes, er- monstrous-looking serpentine fish, silver in color, with
rors, and vague descriptions, he found characteristics that bright red fins radiating out from the head and oarlike ven-
suggested nine distinct categories of sea serpents. He called tral fins. However, although oarfish can grow to lengths of

them the long-necked, the merhorse, the many-humped, thirty feet, their bright colors and horizontal undulations do
the many-finned, the super-otter, the super-eel, the marine notmake them likely sea-serpent candidates. The list of
saurian, the father-of-all-the-turtles, and the yellow-belly. known-phenomenon theories goes on and on, including
Some experts, including Heuvelmans, believe that at even logs and seaweed.
least some types of large unidentified marine creatures are The debate, too, seems likely to continue-between
giant eels Others suggest that the real culprit may be a zeu- the multitude of debunkers, demanding solid physical proof,
glodon, or primitive whale-a supposedly extinct creature and a small but dedicated band of proponents, clinging to
whose remains figured in a notorious nineteenth-century their intriguing fragments of evidence. "Many a man has
sea-serpent hoax (page 30). Still others propose that it may hanged on the basis of flimsier circumstantial evidence,"
be a member of an unidentified, giant northern species sim- researchers LeBlond and Sibert wrote in defending the sea-
ilar to the long-necked leopard seal of the Antarctic. serpent issue against the "scoffers who insist that there
One of the most persistent theories is that the sea ser- cannot be any more large undiscovered animals nowadays
pent at least the long-necked variety-is a surviving ple- and that . . . 'sea-monsters' are the result of hallucination,
Biosaur, as was proposed in the case of the carcass found error or bad faith." But the scientists conceded wryly, "We
and discarded by the lapanese fishermen. Indeed, the dis- will admit that what may pass for sufficient proof in a court
. ol the coelacanth has proved that a presumably ex- of law might not satisfy the criteria of incontrovertible sci-
Urut modern times. But while the enti ic proof: the body is still missing."
II mlghl look the pa I ibed as re- iuch proof will never be easy to come by: Suboceanic
that swall. •
i iuld not exploi ition is fraught with difficulties and danger-the seas
m. st 1 : he plesio- are so vast, and humankind's boats and bathyscaphes so
'V sloVi lOt tle\i small Indeed, for all our technology, the oceans and many
n :

i 'i their ii habitants are still very nearly as enigmatic as they

thlr .
re the have evei ^een.
 Confronting flic Giant Squid

ver since the mariners be-

first

gan returning from their voyages with tales of malevolent crea-

tures that inhabit the deep, sea monsters have lurked in the human
consciousness. And one creature in particularseems to concen-
form the terrors of the watery world— the giant squid.
trate in its
This behemoth's great cylindrical body and huge round eyes,
eight snakelike arms, and pair of far-reaching tentacles have fre-
quently been described in art and literature. Pottery from ancient
Greece depicts giant squid attacking fishing boats; Japanese wood-
cuts show the fearsome creatures battling whales. Aristotle and
Pliny both wrote of huge squid. In Norway, the beast called the
Kraken seemed to combine characteristics of the giant squid with
those of the octopus.
Even though sightings were frequent and the observations re-
markably similar, the giant squid was still considered a mythical
sea monster until the 1 870s. Then, for reasons scientists were at a
loss to explain, no less than a dozen of the tentacled creatures
were reported in Newfoundland. Most were found stranded on the
shores, and few of them were identified or examined by experts.
But one chance encounter in 1 873 provided three hapless fisher-
men and the scientific community with proof of what generations
of seafarers had known all along— that the giant squid not only
existed but could be a mortal threat. The harrowing story of those
fishermen and their furious battle with a monster from the sea ap-
pears on the following pages.
 .*

"^^^ff RKM

S
 •r ai>^> \^

t was just before dawn on

October 26, 1873. The air was
chilly and damp, and the
harbor at St. John's, on the

southeastern tip of the island of

Newfoundland, was blanketed
with fog.Two seasoned
fishermen, Daniel Squires and
Theophilus Piccot, dressed
warmly heavy woolen
in
sweaters and oilskins, were
setting out to net herring in a
nearby cove. Piccot's twelve-
year-old son, Tom, eager to
learn his father's trade, joined
them at the dock.
The trio settled themselves
in a dory— a small, flat-
bottomed boat about twenty
feet long— and rowed a short
distance out into Conception
Bay Soon the
to set their nets.
fishermen noticed what they
thought was a raft of seaweed.
But as the boat drew nearer,
they realized the large,
****** shapeless mass was not at all
what it seemed.
 he object's surface was slick

and purplish red in color.

Although the fishermen

speculated that the calmly
floating form might be the body
of some seacreature, apparent-
ly no one considered just then

that they might be gazing at a

volatile giant squid.
One of the men poked at
the strange mound with a boat
hook Suddenly, the mass
erupted, whipping a circular
formation of eight long, thick,
sucker-studded arms out of the
water and through the air;
exposed at their center was a
long, parrotlike beak and eyes
the size of dinner plates. A pair
of snakelike tentacles, twice
the length of the squid's arms,
darted through the churning
sea toward the dory. Within
seconds, the giant squid had
wrapped its prey in the
muscular grip of a tentacle and
was yanking the little boat
toward its open mouth
SSI IB
 rapping a sinuous arm
around the gunwale, the giant
squid began pulling the small
craft lower into the sea. As
water rushed into their boat,
the desperate fishermen flailed
at the monster with their oars
and bailed out water with a
gallon bucket. Then young Tom
Piccot snatched up a hatchet.
Chopping furiously, he
managed to sever the arm and
tentacle that coiled around the
dory, at that, the monster
quickly retreated, trailing great
clouds of inky fluid.

The fishermen hastily

rowed for the shore, with the
squid's amputated arm and
tentacle still clinging to the
boat Safely back in port, the
trio displayed the irrefutable
evidence of their encounter.
The tentacle, obviously only a
portion of its total length,
stretched nineteen feet; the
squid's arm, unfortunately, was
carried off by hungry dogs
before it could be measured.
r •»-." ^IMfti
Beasts in Human Form

If tales and
legends can be credited, the world of
long ago was inhabited by many
strange and wondrous creatures.
Among the most intriguing of these
beasts were the half-human, half-
animal hybrids. ii

Many scholars have speculated

about the creatures. Some believe that
they sprang from the instinctive fears
and anxieties of primeval people. Oth-
ers maintain that as humankind began to
worship animals whose strength or cunning
were most feared or admired, it began to en-
dow the animal-gods with human traits. This
transfiguration was probably nurtured
by attempts to picture an animal-
god's exploits. A warring beast,
^^^ M '"'
V
for example, might be giv-
en human arms with
which to throw a spear.
j^^B
A
)
Some legends are \
thought to be results of
encounters with unfamiliar i
animals or exotic peoples in 1
far-off lands. Still others may
well be only the products Ufa
ol fertile aginations.
Imaginations.
Whatever thileir origins, /
human beasts were known
;
900
wltures throughout the arii lent
world A sampling ol theii strange and mon-
pears

M
 A creature with the head and body of a lion,
a human head, wings, and the tail of a snake
appears in this Turkish bas-relieffrom
about the tenth century BC.
Probably derived from the Egyptian
sphinx, the fire-breathing ^«.-4'
human-beast was said . I
to guard the palace
of the reigning . *

monarch. .

A . i

):

*Y»* Vt »
 Supposedly seen as recently as 1820, the sinuous mermaid
shown in this Japanese drawing is said to be a messengerfrom a
serpent-princess who lives beneath the sea.

A, o riling to an. lent I gvptian legend, the merman and mermaid

.

i/iiwi In thl\ seventeenth cntury engraving once emerged

lt>>m the sile River lhr amorous amphibians shared a feature
amm
unique h -webbed feel.

.1 thr b
'- re- |

rgymen tty
 In a classic view of the
age-old legend, a
voluptuous mermaid
enchants a young man in
this painting from the
mid- 1800s. Mermaids
were said to lure men
with the promise of
forbidden pleasures, only
to devour them or hold
them prisoner at
the bottom of the sea.

55
Demi-Humans oi flic Land

This painting from a Greek vase of the sixth century

BC depicts the warrior Theseus slaying the Minotaur.
Described as the offspring of a great white bull and
the unfaithful wife of Crete's King Minos, the flesh-
eating monster was said to possess the body of a
human and the head-and appetite— of a bull.

In ancient Egypt, the jackal-headed

god called Anubis, portrayed in this
bronze statue from the Ptolemaic
period (332-30 BC), was thought to
supervise the preparation of mum-
mies and guard the tombs of the dead.
Anubis also participated in the
judgment of the deceased, weighing
their hearts against the feather
of truth to determine who would
achieve the glory of afterlife.
 On the Andaman Islands off the coast of
Burma, Marco Polo reportedly encountered
a race of dog-headed men. "They are a
most cruel generation," he wrote, "and eat
everybody that they can catch."

The lamia of Creek

mythology had the head
and breasts of a human
female, as shown in this
seventeenth-century
woodcut. The voracious
creature was said to feast
on men and children.

The Creek satyr, a shaggy

woodland spirit with the
haunches of a goat, plays
a rustic pipe in this
seventeenth-century
drawing. These merry
creatures supposedly spent
their time sleeping,
making music, or cavort-
ing with nymphs.
Creatures of flie Air

>rrn hed, the figure ofMaat, Egyptian god

e, kneel* above the entrance to the tomb
o/N< wife of Pharaoh Ramses II.
y «<*

A winged, hawk-headed
man clutching a bag in
his hand graces an ear
ornament from ancient
Peru. The figure is
thought to be a courier
garbed as a bird or a
representation of a god.

The Greek sphinx allegedly

perched outside the city of
Thebes and killed passersby This eagle-headed genie
who failed to answer its of Assyrian legend,
riddles. As shown in this shown in a marble bas-
statue from about 570 BC, about 900
relieffrom
the creature had the body of BC, was said to be a
a lion, the wings of an benevolent guardian. But
eagle, and a woman's head. tales describe evil
genies who spread dis-
harmony and inspired
criminal acts.

59
 CHAPTER 2

IheQuesHorNessie

estled deep in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by rugged mountains and

forests and fields, Loch Ness is one of Europe's great lakes. Its length is a

modest twenty-four miles, and its width rarely exceeds one mile; but the
fantastic depth -more than 700 feet in places -makes Loch Ness by volume
the third-largest body of fresh water in Europe. And it is by all odds the most
mysterious. In those frigid waters, rendered dark and virtually opaque by
peat leached from the land, a huge creature is said to reside.
Among the countless believers is Hugh Ayton, a farmer who in 1963
was tilling land that bordered the lake near the village of Dores. Ayton, his
son Jim, and three other men were still working at 7:30 one serene August
evening when the son saw something moving across the lake. The men
stared where the youth was excitedly pointing. "It was big and black," said

Ayton later. "The loch was calm and everything was quiet; there wasn't a
noise anywhere. Just this thing moving steadily forward."
Suddenly, the men realized that they were watching "the monster" of
Loch Ness lore, and in an instant, curiosity overwhelmed caution. Racing
down to a nearby jetty, four of them jumped into a small rowboat equipped
with an outboard motor and took off after it. "The thing was still coming
down the loch," recalled Ayton, "and as we got closer, we could see more
details of it. There was a long neck coming about six feet out of the water,

and a head which reminded me and flatter.

rather of a horse, though bigger
The body was made up of three low humps -about 30 to 40 feet long in all
and about four feet high. The color was dark and the skin looked rough."
The men were within about fifty yards of the creature, related Ayton,
when it "rose up a little out of the water and dived and put up an enormous
disturbance which swirled the boat around." A few seconds later, the head
resurfaced, and then it disappeared for good. "The one feature of it that I'll

always remember," said Ayton, "was the eye-an oval-shaped eye near the
top of its head I'll always remember that eye looking at us."
Mistory does not record when the first of the lake creatures was sighted
or who encountered it. Water spirits and other such beings have been a part
ghland legend for many centuries. In 565 AD, the Irish missionary Saint
Columba is said to have come across some townspeople light hour, some vague and some powerfully detailed— by
along the River Ness burying a man who had been mauled every imaginable sort of person, singly and in groups of a
by a monster, and the saint is supposed to have saved an- score or more: farmers and priests, fishermen and lawyers,
other swimmer from attack by what was described as "a policemen and politicians, and even a Nobel prize-winning
very odd-looking beastie, something like a huge frog, only it chemist, the Englishman Richard L. M. Synge, who saw the
was not a frog." The creature would have devoured the creature in 1938. Million-dollar expeditions have descended
hapless soul had not the saint commanded: "Go thou no on Loch Ness. Investigators have spent months at a time

further nor touch that man. Go back at once!" The monster scanning the lake with binoculars, have launched minisub-
is said to have approached to within fifty feet of the swim- marines into its depths, and have probed its gloomy reaches
mer and then sank harmlessly out of sight. Tradition not- with strobe-light cameras and sonar equipment. One inves-
withstanding, though, neither of these supposed incidents tigator estimated that, for every observation, there have
appears to have occurred at Loch Ness. been 350 hours of concerted search, leading to scores of

The early Scots called these creatures water kelpies, books, some scornfully debunking, others stoutly champi-
water horses, water bulls, or simply spirits, and mothers oning "Nessie," as she — for some reason, the monster
sternly warned their children not to play too close to the seems to have been deemed female— has come to be called.

shores of lakes or rivers; the beast, or whatever it was, Nevertheless, the lake has yet to yield an ancient
could take the form of a horse, galloping onto the land, en- bone, a bit of tissue, or any other definitive testimony to the
ticing a child on top of its back, and then plunging with its monster's presence. Aside from the volumes of eyewitness
helpless little rider back into the depths. reports, the evidence consists of only a handful of fuzzy and
One of the first of the modern-day sightings is said to ambiguous photographs and films and some debatable so-
in 880, when a seasoned Loch Ness water-
have occurred 1 nar readings. For all the ardent attention, the puzzles of

man named Duncan McDonald was examining a boat that Loch Ness and its elusive creature are no closer to solution

had sunk in the lake. McDonald was examining the wreck now than they were that day in 1 880 when Duncan McDon-
when he signaled frantically to be pulled to the surface. ald was scared half to death by the ominous form he sup-
Ashen faced, trembling uncontrollably, and incoherent with posedly spotted in the dim, peat-stained waters.
fear, he was finally able to blurt out that he had seen a mon-

ster in themurky water. He had gotten a good look at one of But that is in the nature of such things. Lake monsters-
the creature's eyes, he reported, and described it as "small, immense, mysterious, menacing— are part of the folklore of

gray and baleful." According to some accounts, McDonald many peoples in many lands. The Highlanders, not known
never entered the lake again. as overly gullible or fanciful, relate that they themselves
Since then, there have been something like 3,000 re- have glimpsed monsters in more than a half-dozen Scottish

ported sightings -from shore and from boats, in every day- lakes in addition to Loch Ness. Indeed, another of the lakes,

61
Mrs. B. Clark sketched a beast she claimed to have seen -and touched
-while swimming in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, in 1974. Al- Q/e /y/|f££
though it had a whalelike tail, Clark recalled, the dark-gray creature
was long and serpentine and appeared to undulate through the water.
Her description seemed to match the more than 200 previously
reported sightings of the monster locals have nicknamed Ogopogo.

Loch Morar, in recent years has even

shared the spotlight with Loch Ness be-
cause of the reported appearance
fctr/of Atx*!^ ^^/T/f
of a monster called Morag. Mon- to appease the ferocious monster. Not to do so was foolhar-
sters have also been sighted in lakes dy, they thought, and there is some more-recent support for

in Scandinavia, Ireland, Siberia, and Africa. the belief. In the mid- 1850s, one John MacDougall was sup-
And judging from eyewitness accounts, the Loch Ness posedly crossing the lake with his two horses swimming
beast has at least two cousins in North America. Lake behind him, attached to his canoe by ropes. Usually, Mac-
Champlain, the 109-mile-long waterway between New York Dougall honored the Indian custom and tossed a small ani-
and Vermont and into Quebec, is home to Champ, which mal or two in the water to appease whatever malevolent
has been sighted more than 200 times and supposedly cap- creature lived there, but this time he neglected to do so. As
tured once on film. And in British Columbia, Lake Okana- the story goes, something unseen began to pull the horses

gan is the site of the first reported incident in which a hu- under and would have dragged the canoe down, too, had
man actually made physical contact with a lake monster. MacDougall not whipped out his knife, cut loose the horses,

some accounts, the seventeenth-century French and paddled for shore.

explorer Samuel de Champlain may have spotted Despite such reports— or perhaps because of them —
a strange creature in the lake that bears his name. the Okanagan monster was largely dismissed as a native

By
of 1819,
But the first recorded sighting of an unmistakably
Champ-like beast did not occur
when a boatman reportedly saw
until the summer
a long-necked
superstition until the 1920s,
sightings. All of the stories indicated that the beast

harmless, and the first

when there were repeated

fears quickly turned to a curious sort

was

creature with its head held about fifteen feet above the wa- of affection. Local residents gave the creature a fanciful
ter Similar sightings followed, and toward the end of the name, Ogopogo, and by 1983, the local tourist association
1800s, interest in Champ was so great that circus impresar- was offering one million dollars for proof of Ogopogo's ex-
io p T Barnum offered a large sum for the monster, dead or istence. To be was a tongue-in-cheek proposition,
sure, it

alive Nothing came of it at the time, and some observers soon dropped, that was designed to boost tourism, but the
continue to doubt that there is anything out of the ordinary association plainly thought there was at least a slim chance
living in Lake Champlain In 1977, however, a woman on of someone claiming the reward. To cover that eventuality,
vacation in the .irea photographed what appears to be a it took out an insurance policy with Lloyd's of London.
head and a long neck lifting OUl of the lake waters (oppo- Not everyone was laughing, however. In 1987, a Ca-
And by the 1980s \h tate legislatures of Vermont nadian woman who wanted to be identified only as Mrs. B.
and New York though! il |
rod n nol to mention an en- Clark finally described a close encounter she had had with
ment to tourism tops rts to protect Champ. the monster thirteen years before. A teenager then, she was
The tradition oi monsti ;

ikes, including swimming toward a diving platform about a quarter of a

tries old Ih. i
Naitaka, or mile offshore when "something big and heavy bumped my
which w .
non. So legs." She scrambled for the safety of the raft and watched
N ni.ik.i -

rossed it. "I could see a hump or coil which was eight feet long and
the la ich thlr lour feet above the water, moving in a forward motion,"
she said. The animal was twenty-five to thirty feet long, and of destruction. The Druid had cautioned the people that

"kind of 'humped' itself along like a giant inchworm." each time they finished drawing water, they must immedi-
Yet for every reported sighting of a Champ or an Ogo- ately replace the stone that capped the well.

pogo, there have been a dozen of the Loch Ness monster. They obeyed the warning until one day a woman, go-
And so it is to Loch Ness, smaller and murkier than either ing to the well, left her baby by the fireside in her house. No
Champlain or Okanagan, that dedicated monster hunters sooner had she removed the stone than she heard the child
from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have returned each cry out. She raced back to her house and saved her child

summer for many decades to track their elusive quarry. from a burning ember, but she had left the well uncovered.
The waters flooded the valley. The people ran for the moun-
Geologists date the formation of Loch Ness to the last ice tains, where their lament filled the air: Tha loch 'nis annl—
age, between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, when a great "There is a lake now!" Hence the name Ness.
finger of glacier gouged the lake bed out of the earth's crust. It is easy enough to understand the belief that Loch
The Highland Scots have a more evocative explanation for Ness lies under an ancient curse. Set in Scotland's Great
both the loch and its name. In ancient times, goes the tale, Glen, a geologic fault that splits Scotland in two from Fort

the lake was a paradisiacal valley with a holy well, blessed William in the south to Inverness in the north, the lake is

by a Druid priest, whose waters cured every disease. But subject to strong winds that can change conditions within

like most Edens, the valley lay under an omnipresent threat minutes. One moment its surface is as glassy as a mirror,

In July 977, Sandra Mansi reportedly saw the head and neck of a strange creature
1
rise from the watersof Lake Champlain. She quickly snapped this now-famous photograph,
thought by some to reveal the lake monster known as Champ. Experts judged
the photograph genuine, but since Mansi 's negative was lost, skeptics have not ruled out a hoax.

63
 ^H '
>,.

Vrquhart Castle, with Its view of Loch Ness, would seem a good place from which to observe Nessie,

64
the lake's famous monster. Yet five centuries of castle records contain no mention of such a creature.

65
and the next will see it whipped into a frenzy of eight-foot it would have been much deeper just after the end of the
waves. For centuries it has been said that Loch Ness never last ice age, before the land rose when relieved of the huge
gives up its dead. And in truth, the temperature is so low at weight of glaciers.
the bottom that bodies can be consumed by the lake's fauna Nevertheless, a creature would find a comfortable

before gases can form to bring a corpse to the surface. home in Loch Ness, which is rich in eels, salmon, trout, and
deaths in the lake in this century have perpetu- other And yet, it was not
fish. until the early 1930s that the

Two ated its

prominent banker drowned

sinister reputation. In

in a
1932, the wife of a
boating accident;
monster seemed suddenly to
relative quiescence. The first
burst forth after centuries of
recorded sighting of the beast
although she was an swimmer and only
excellent came on the evening of July 22, 1 930, when young Ian Milne
yards from shore, her body was never recovered. and two companions were fishing off Tor Point, near the
Twenty years later, the noted speedboat pilot John Cobb small village of Dores. The lads were salmon
idly casting for

was killed while trying to break the world water-speed when they were startled by a great commotion 600 yards up
record. Conditions were supposed to be ideal: A flat, breeze- the loch. "I saw spray being thrown up into the air to a
less calm prevailed. But Cobb's boat disintegrated when it considerable height," reported Milne. The thing bore down
hit an area of disturbed water at over 200 miles per hour. on the fishermen was 300 yards away, then swiftly
until it

Some say that the turbulent patch was the monster's wake; turned in a half circle and rushed away at a speed of about
others, though, explain that Cobb almost certainly struck fifteen knots or more. "The part of it we saw would be

the wake of his own pilot boat about 20 feet long and it was standing three feet or so out of
Much of Loch Ness is hidden from the winding road the water. The wash it created caused our boat to rock vio-
that runs along its southwestern shore, twisting in among lently," said Milne, and he solemnly concluded, "It was

the foothills and passing through bleak moorland. Even without doubt a living creature, and can say that it was I

from the major road along the northern shore, the view of certainly not a basking shark or a seal or a school of otters
the water is often obscured by heavy forest. But on both or anything normal."
Shf ires, the road opens up at several points to reveal a stun- Milne's account, published in the local press, stirred a
ning panorama mild sensation and prompted a number of letters from cor-
The most spectacular view, where the lake is deepest respondents relating previous experiences with a suppos-
.mil widest, is from the ruins of Urquhart Castle, once a Nor- edly similar creature. But the excitement quickly faded
man fortress that, another legend has was built from
it, when no further sightings were forthcoming. Two years
Hones bome by Witches At one time a pawn between the passed -and then in 1933, the Loch Ness monster made it-
conquering English and the rebellious Scots, the twelfth sell known with a vengeance. That was the year work

century I tstie OH Urquhart Bay now is more famous as the crews repaired and resurfaced the road along the lake's
best pi, in- from Which tO -l
1
"! the nmr north shore, and some investigators feel that there was a
now .1 monster might have reached Loch Ness is al- dired relationship between the two events. Indeed, while
ls great I mj .tut the monster is The sole the * ommotion caused by the road builders probably was
•
net ting the lake with the se.i .ire the Caledo not sufficient, as some have suggested, to shake a slumber-
man Canal, first opened I >n in 1822, and the River ing monster from its underwater caverns, it may well be
ii is controlled rtrougri numerous locks thai th.it the felling of trees along the roadway gave passersby a
i now too better view of the lake and anything on it
ite i
n ••
although Whatever the eause. on April 14, Mr and Mrs. John

66
Mackay, innkeepers at Drumnadrochit, were driving along the lake when Mrs.
Mackay noticed that the serene surface of the loch had been shattered by a surging,
roiling mass of water. As she watched in astonishment, what seemed to be an enor-

mous animal rolled and plunged about for almost a minute before disappearing in a
great gout of foam. The Mackays related this experience to Alex Campbell, a water
Caledonian Canal

bailiff and also local correspondent for the Inverness Courier. Camp-
bell, who would eventually claim to see the monster nearly a score of and measuring
times himself, filed his story. And soon talk of the monster was rip- about twenty-
pling through the Highlands. Cynics pointed out five feet in
that as managers of the Drumnadrochit Hotel, the length crossed
Mackays stood to gain handsomely from the tour- their path. The
ist draw of having a creature in the lake. In truth, beast appeared
Mrs. Mackay complained much later, the brewery to be carrying a
that owned the hotel took advantage of the pub- small lamb or
licity and "sold it above our . .._. similar animal
heads a couple of years la- in its mouth,
ter," which caused the Mac- Spicer said. It

kays to lose their positions. was, he added, "the nearest ap-

At any rate, the monster proach to a dragon or prehistoric
kept popping up before the animal that I have ever seen." In

awestruck eyes of local resi- another instance in September, a

dents and visitors alike. In party of six people said they
one case, the thing was re- watched from a teahouse window
portedly seen on land. On a while the monster swam about
beautiful July afternoon, the lake a half mile out. It seemed
George Spicer, a London to have a snakelike head and
businessman, and his wife neck that itpumped up and down and swung from
were driving near the lake side to side; the people saw two humps and a large

when suddenly tail that lashed the water. They watched in fascina-

a "loathsome" tion for fully ten minutes before the creature moved
creature with slowly off and sank beneath the surface.
a long neck The sensation continued throughout the summer,
with perhaps a score of sightings involving dozens
upon dozens of people. Some eyewitnesses had
nightmares for weeks. As Mrs. Spicer described the creature, "It

was horrible -an abomination."

The first photograph of Nessie was taken in mid-November by a

local, Hugh Gray, who had aimed his camera at a commotion in the

lake 100 yards away and had snapped five pictures; four were light-

struck and useless, but the fifth, though damaged, showed a vaguely
defined, sinuous form in the water. Gray was hesitant to estimate
the thing's size, except to say that it "was very great"; he said that

Loch Ness is one of three lakes that fill the the skin appeared smooth and glistening
Great Glen, a massive geologic fault cutting and of a dark-gray color. His negative was
across Scotland. The largest body offresh
water in Britain, it covers nearly 14,000 analyzed by several photography experts,
acres and has an average depth of 433 feet. who declared that it seemed genuine and
The loch's placid beauty belies its inhos-
pitable nature: The water's temperature is had not been retouched.
a frigid forty-two degrees, and all but By then the national press had picked
about the first few feet of water is virtually
Caledonian Canal impenetrable by light. up the story, and teams of reporters were

67
racing north to file vivid accounts. Huge prizes were offered Minister Sir Ramsey MacDonald was said to be so interest-

for the monster, dead or alive. Hotels in the area did a busi- ed in the monster that he planned a special trip north in

ness such as they had never dreamed possible, and canny hopes of catching a glimpse.
shopkeepers enjoyed a nice little windfall in souvenir mon- In London, a tony seafood restaurant responded to the

ster pincushions, tea cozies, and chocolate effigies. Such monster fever by offering "Le filet de sole Loch Ness." And

was the crush that on holidays, cars were backed up for across the Atlantic in America, a woman's clothing manu-

miles along the shore road. No less a personage than Prime facturer made quite a hit with an ensemble called "Loch
Ness," consisting of a dark-green frock and matching jacket

Hired in 1933 by the London Daily Mail to find Nessie, big-game with long front tails trimmed in gray fox.
hunter M. A. Wetherall (center) quickly discovered monster- As the year drew to a close, the French press, in
size footprints. They were later shown to have been made by
pranksters with a hippopotamus-foot umbrella stand. search of relief from the grim events of the Great Depres-
sion, decided that 1933's brightest spot by far was the dis-
covery of the monster. The Austrians, on the other hand,
were decidedly unhappy, the government sourly complain-
ing that it was all a Scottish plot to lure tourists away from
the Alps and Vienna's coffee and chocolate-cake parlors.

was an atmosphere ripe for a hoaxer, and inevitably

It

an ingenius prank was perpetrated. In December, a self-

jMfc
 This photograph, purportedly the first
recorded image of the Loch Ness mon-
ster, was taken in 1 933 by Hugh Gray, a
resident of the nearby village of Foyers.
Cray claimed in a 1 955 interview to have
seen the monster six times.

head something like a snake or a

huge eel. The creature was watch-
ing him, he said, and when he got
to within twenty yards, it bounded
swiftly away and plunged noisily
into the lake. Grant made a sketch
of what he had seen; the monster
was about twenty feet long, with a

heavy body and four limbs, the

forequarters small and weak, the
hindquarters massive and powerful
enough that it had bounded across
the road like an immense kanga-
styled big-game hunter, accompanied by a personal pho- roo. "It looked like a hybrid," he said.

tographer, arrived in Loch Ness with the declared intention To others, however, the creature increasingly began to

of bagging the monster. No sooner had the two commenced look like a plesiosaur, an aquatic reptile that roamed the
the hunt than they reported finding enormous footprints, earth during the time of the dinosaurs, 70 million years ago.
only a few hours old, on the shore of the loch. The world
waited impatiently for the British Museum's pronounce-
ment. Finally the experts rendered their opinion: The foot-
prints, they advised weightily, belonged to a hippopotamus.
To be precise, they had been made by a stuffed hippopota-

mus foot, a Victorian umbrella stand belonging to a local

resident with two mischievous young sons. It was never
clear whether the explorers were part of the joke or the vic-

tims of it, but they quickly disappeared from the scene.

Yet while the skeptics chortled, more and more people
seemed to be seeing the monster. In early 1934, there was a
second land sighting. A presumably reliable young veteri-

nary student, Arthur Grant, was motorcycling one moonlit

night when he noticed a large dark object on the road
ahead. Grant pulled to a stop, dismounted from his ma-
chine, and crept cautiously forward. As he approached, he
reported, he could see that the object was an animal with a
As the wave ofNessie sightings continued into 1934, the pubucity-
minded Bertram Mills Circus of London announced it would pay
£20,000 for the live monster. Some optimistic souls quickly began
building cages, such as this thirty-five-ton steel model, for the beast.
 The Vanishing Bum

In the farthestreaches of northeast In- cultural officer named Charles Stonor holed up in the recesses of the swamp
dia, inan isolated valley rimmed by had visited the valley, located in the during dry periods but came up to frol-
the Himalayas, lies a swamp said to be province of Assam, and spoken with ic during the rainy season, when the
inhabited by monsters Tales of these about thirty tribespeople who con- swamp became a lake.
beasts, known as bums to the Apa vinced him they had seen the beasts. Sensing both an adventure and
Tani and Dafla tribes that live in the Described as about twelve feet long, an exclusive story for his employer,
region, have been handed down in with reptilian skin and three rows of Izzard contacted Stonor,and the two
tribal lore for generations. short, blunt spines that ran down its arranged an expedition to Assam, un-
In 1948, word of the legendary back, the four-legged buru reputedly der the financial sponsorship of the
swamp creatures reached the ears of had a long snout and clawed feet. Daily Mail and the governor-general of
Ralph Izzard, a correspondent on as- Dark blue and white in color, the India, Earl Mountbatten of Burma. In
signment in Delhi for the London Daily creature remained March 1948, with a cameraman, a bat-
Mail It seemed that a British zo- tery of porters, and enough provisions
ologist and agri- for 100 days in the field, the group
journeyed to the swamp.
But there was not a buru to be
found. The men spent months hacking
through the jungle and slogging
knee-deep into the swamp, enduring
constant rain and the savage bites of
leeches, mosquitoes, and dim-dam
flies. For hours, they stood with eyes

glued to a telescope, hoping for a sign

of the unusual creature. They saw
some provocative shadows on the
water's surface, but these proved to be
only ripples caused by wind. Even the
very pool in which the buru were said
to live, according to Izzard, "could
not have concealed as much as an
otter. ... We found it little more
than three feet deep."
Although the men acknowledged
defeat, they did not surrender belief.
Izzard and Stonor concluded that
the buru had probably lived in the
valley of Assam until the neighbor-
ing tribes began cultivating the land
near the swamp. Then the swamp
steadily silted up, depriving the
buru of its home and driving the
beast to extinction before it could
be found and documented.

In the Himalayas of remote

northeast India, anApa Tani tribal
priestnamed Tamar of Hang
describes the legendary swamp
creature known to his people as
the buru. A 1 948 expedition
lasting three months uncovered
no trace of the reptilian beast.

70
The small head and serpentine neck, the immense size, the posted the men at various points around the lake for five
flippers and aquatic habits all seemed to fit. But that was weeks, nine hours a day. The monster watchers reported
impossible— or was it? numerous sightings and took twenty-one photographs. But
The reports and the growing consensus about what it while King George V expressed interest in the hunt and
might be piqued the interest of a man named Rupert Gould, some members of the royal family visited the lake, nothing
the first of many who would try to identify the monster once conclusive emerged from Mountain's ambitious hunt.
and for all. Gould, who was thirty-seven years old when he Mountain himself, after studying the prints produced by his

retired from the hydrographic department of the British Ad- minions, speculated that the monster might in fact be a gray
miralty in 1927, had a strong curiosity about an extraordi- seal that had come up the River Ness in pursuit of salmon,
nary range of subjects, including clockmaking, perpetual found its way into the lake, and was then unable to get out.
motion, the canals on Mars, Nostradamus, and the secrets Zoologists who viewed a film made later by James Fraser—
of the Indian rope trick. Yet another interest was sea ser- who headed the Mountain expedition— tended to agree, al-
pents, about which he had published a book in 1930. though some of them held that the beast was a whale or
the monster reports started flooding in, Gould even a large otter.

As focused his considerable attention on Loch Ness.

Arriving in Inverness in
bought a small motorcycle that he christened
November 1933, he
There was one photograph of the monster, however,
that could not be dismissed quite so lightly

gists—or anyone else, for that matter. Earlier, in April, a

by the zoolo-

Cynthia and putt-putted off to the lake. A giant of London surgeon named Robert Kenneth Wilson, on vaca-
a man at a portly six foot four, Gould cut a somewhat com- tion in the Highlands, took four snapshots of something
ical figure. But he was indefatigable, cycling around the lake causing what he termed "a considerable commotion" in

and conducting interviews with about fifty people who had Loch Ness. When they were developed, two exposures were
allegedly seen the monster. In 1934, without ever having blank. But the third clearly and dramatically showed what
sighted the monster himself, he published The Loch Ness seemed to be an animal's upraised head and neck, and the
Monster and Others, the first book on the subject. The Loch fourth showed the head disappearing into the water.

Ness monster, Gould said, was a descendant of his old Decades later, the third photograph— often called the
friend, the sea serpent. Surgeon's Photograph— remains the most famous docu-
Having delivered his verdict, Gould lost interest in the mentation of Nessie. It is also the most controversial. Skep-

monster and went on to his next starring role, in the popu- tics sometimes claim that Wilson took the photograph on
lar British Broadcasting Corporation's "Brains Trust" pro- April Fool's Day— although others maintain that it was in

gram. His book impressed few zoologists, but it captured fact taken April 19. Moreover, it is said that Wilson told a

the imagination of Sir Edward Mountain, an insurance com- close friend he had faked the picture. But Wilson's widow,
pany millionaire who had come to the Highlands to fish for queried on the matter years afterward, staunchly asserted
salmon. In the summer of 1934, Sir Edward personally fi- that it was genuine.
nanced the first monster expedition at Loch Ness.
Its members were twenty local men whom Sir Edward As World War II engulfed Europe, the Loch Ness monster
had recruited from the unemployment rolls. Scottish to the was largely forgotten. And when sightings were reported
core, they solemnly entered their occupations as Watchers occasionally during the late 1940s and 1950s, not many
for the Monster on their state welfare cards. Sir Edward people took them seriously; it was as though the furor of the

equipped his team with box cameras and binoculars and 1930s had exhausted the public's capacity for excitement

71
 Alex Campbell was the water bailiff
at Loch Ness in 1934, charged
with protecting migratory salmon,
when he first claimed to have
spied Sessie. In his four decades of
work at the lake, the dapper
Scot reported eighteen sightings.

fore and since his involve-

ment, there have been people
who have championed Nes-
sie. Dinsdale alone, however,
devoted his life to establish-

ing the monster's existence.

One evening in 1959,
Dinsdale, then a thirty-four-
year-old aeronautical engi-
about such things. In 1947, for example, an Inverness bank neer, was spending a comfortable evening in his home in

manager named J. C. Forbes said that he had seen the crea- the south of England when he opened a favorite magazine
ture, and a local newspaper soon featured a scornful letter: to an article about the Loch Ness monster. He had heard of
Dear Sir, the monster, of course, and was mildly curious about it. But
Although not acquainted with Mr. J. C. Forbes, Manag- as he read, he "became aware of a growing interest," he
er of the National Bank, Inverness, I should like to con- later recalled in Loch Ness Monster, one of three books the
firm his statement. From my viewpoint in the loch I could engineer would write on the subject. That night Dinsdale
see Mr Forbes distinctly on the shore with his friends and slept fitfully, dreaming that he walked the lake's steep
1 actually saw them leap to safety when I came racing shores and peered into its inky depths in hopes of finding
up the loch the monster. When he awoke, he realized that he had found
Might I please ask sightseers to return their empty his life's mission.

whisky bottles, for the amount of broken glass in and For the next year, Dinsdale painstakingly analyzed all

around the loch is very dangerous to us amphibians. the available data. Then in April 1960, he set out on what
Yours faithfully, was to be the first of many 600-mile journeys from his home
The Loch Ness Monster to Loch Ness. Although he would make the trip again more
During this time, the only person to pursue the mon- than fifty times and spend countless months on the water
ster seriously was Constance Whyte, a housewife who had and observing from the shore, this brief visit was to prove
grown familiar with Loch Ness when her husband became his most successful.
manager of the Caledonian Canal. She never saw the mon- Dinsdale pursued the monster for six days. Rising near
ster Mrrscli hut she spent two decades collecting and eval- dawn, he watched the lake through binoculars from various
uating scores of eyewitness impressions. points on shore. Each time he drove from one point to the
In 1957, she published a book, More Than a Legend, next, he prepared for a sudden sighting by setting up his
whu h bet Bme requii ng for all future monster hunt- movie camera, equipped with a telephoto lens, on a tripod
e thing, Whyte the most meticulous next to the driver's seat. When not keeping watch, he inter-
•< <• lake For another viewed people who claimed to have seen the creature.
III a soli- After five days, Dinsdale was almost ready to give up.
nil 'ures But he decided to stay one more day. Again rising at dawn,
t. he he watched the lake for nearly four hours without success
iv ngll and was hungrily heading back to his hotel for breakfast
1
resl i
he took a few minutes to set up the camera in his car.
He was coasting down a hill when something in the lake ligence Centre, part of Britain's Royal Air Force, agreed to
caught his eye. Stopping abruptly, he snatched up his binoc- analyze the film. JARIC estimated that the object was at

ulars and peered intently at a long oval shape, mahogany least six feet wide and five feet high. Most significantly,

colored, in the water. Then it began to move. Dinsdale JARIC concluded that it was neither a surface boat nor a
dropped his binoculars and started the camera. submarine, and therefore "probably an animate object."
He filmed the monster for four minutes as it swam Dinsdale, for his part, did not wait for official encour-
west on a zigzag course at distances of from 1 ,300 to 1 ,800 agement. He returned to the lake for nine days in July 1960,
yards. Then he took a gamble. Hoping to get close enough for ten chilly days in March 1961, and again in May. In fact,

to see the monster's head and neck, he raced for the wa- from 1960 until his death in late 1987, he would average
ter's edge -only to find that the object had disappeared. two visits to Loch Ness each year. Often, he stayed for the

The importance of Dinsdale's film would not be fully entire summer, living and sleeping on his sixteen-foot cabin

appreciated for almost six years. In late 1965, at the request cruiser, Water Horse, for weeks at a time.

of a member of Parliament, David James, himself a Loch Extended absences from his family were not the only
Ness monster hunter, of the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intel- occupational penalty of monster watching. Dinsdale also
endured a bout of pneumonia,
tumbled painfully down precipi-
tous slopes, and weathered
stormy nights when it seemed
that neither Water Horse nor he
would survive the wind and
waves. But in all those years,
Dinsdale had only two more tan-
talizing glimpses of the beastie,

the name he borrowed from the

local residents.

For much of that time, how-

ever, Dinsdale had plenty of com-
pany at Loch Ness. His film in-

spired a host of new expeditions,

from individual ventures to im-
pressively organized armies of

^^^fep^ volunteers. The largest and

^^
~>* v~*9
-

longest-lived effort was the Loch

Ness Phenomena Investigation

^^ ^w From her home near Urquhart Bay,

Winifred Cary has witnessed nu-
merous efforts to prove that the Loch
Ness monster exists. Cary needs no
further evidence; she claims to have
seen the elusive beastie fifteen times.

-2
 In 1958, trout farmer H. L. Cockrell photo-
graphed what some believe to be Nessie
moving through the loch at dawn. Others
contend the object is a floating log.

London surgeon R. Kenneth

Wilson's 1 934 image of a head
and neck coming from the loch
might be a monster; skeptics
see an otter or diving bird.

Lachlan Stuart said he photographed a three-

humped beast in 1951; some call the picture a hoax.
In 1960, monster hunter Tim Dinsdale
filmed a long oval shape moving through
Loch Ness, trailing a considerable wake.

This 1934 image by F. C.

*7^ Adams seems to reveal a fin
emerging from the foam,
but the shot's poor quality
makes analysis difficult.

Controversy surrounds this

P. A. MacNab photograph
from Urquhart Bay. Some
say it only shows the wakes
of trawlers in the loch.
 In August I 969, a one-person submarine called Viperfish was fitted with sonar equipment
and biopsy harpoons intended to withdraw tissue samples from its targets. After the submarine made
several problem-plagued dives into Loch Ness, the project was abandoned.

Bureau, later shortened to Loch Ness Investigation, or LNI. Cambridge expedition mounted shore cameras and ex-
Its driving force was David James, the MP. who was plored the lake's depths with sonar.
best known at that time for two daredevil escape attempts, The 1962 assault on Loch Ness produced some scraps
the second of which was successful, from a German prison of evidence that were compelling only to the already con-
camp during World War II. In 1962, James organized the LNI verted. In subsequent years, the LNI, using battalions of
with Constance Whyte, naturalists Sir Peter Scott (son of the volunteers, maintained a round-the-clock camera watch
famous Antarctic explorer Robert Scott) and Richard Fitter, on about 70 percent of the lake from May to October. By
and Norman Collins, deputy chairman of a British television James's count, they devoted no fewer than 30,000 work-
production company. hours to scrutinizing the surface of the lake and still more
Later that year, in what would be the first of many ex- time collecting the accounts of eyewitnesses. They also pur-
peditions on the loch, James and two dozen volunteers sued the monster with sonar, hovered over the lake in heli-
vd the lake with binoculars and cameras by day. By copters, and put out pebbles soaked in salmon oil and foul-
night, they beamed army searchlights on the inky waters. smelling substances they hoped would act as a sex lure.
IS not, what they illuminated were other monster They piped Beethoven's Sixth Symphony underwater. They
hunters, for the lake wa t sitiveiy crowded. recorded noises from the deep and played them back.
I H G Hasler, wh h. Mmous "Cockle- In 1969, the LNI deployed a midget submarine named
nst l. irships during Vtpafish in order to plumb the depths and -it was hoped
In to j.
in his fire biopsy harpoons into the monster to collect tissue sam-
ii isten, hydro- ples. On its first dive, the bright-yellow submarine buried its

ideni in a nose in the silt at the bottom and had to blow ballast to

to
extricate itself. Even the most dedicated researchers reluc- pogo and Champ. In 1980, he embarked on a search in the

tantly conceded that the submarine was too noisy, too slow Congo for the Mokele-mbembe, a supposed sauropod dino-
and unwieldy to catch up with Nessie. saur (pages 91-97).
For several of the LNl's summers at Loch Ness, the By the time Mackal began branching out from the
monster hunt was largely directed by Roy Mackal, the first search for the Loch Ness monster, however, another Amer-
member of the scientific establishment to take the creature ican who would prove critical to the quest had become
seriously. In 1965, Mackal was a forty-year-old biochemist deeply involved. He was Robert Rines, a Boston patent law-
from the University of Chicago who had won renown for his yer who was forty-eight years old in 1970 when he heard
research on deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. He was on va- Mackal speak about monster hunting at a conference Rines
cation in London and feeling the need to escape the bustle attended at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his
of big-city life when he came across a travel poster adver- alma mater. Something of a maverick, Rines had originally

tising the Scottish Highlands. A few days later, he was over- taken his degree in physics but then had embarked on a
looking Loch Ness from the shore at Urquhart Bay and no- successful legal career while obtaining patents of his own
ticed one of the LNI's observation vans. He was fascinated. for inventions in sonar and radar. He helped to establish
Before he returned to Chicago, Mackal had met with a New Hampshire law school dedicated to turning out
David James at his estate on the Isle of Mull and viewed entrepreneurial-minded patent lawyers who would lead in-
Dinsdale's film in London. His mind was made up; Mackal ventors through the jungle of government red tape.
became a Loch Ness monster hunter and the LNI's point In 1963, Rines and a few wealthy friends had founded
man in America, raising the first substantial money for the an organization
investigation and securing its first real hearing among called the Acade-
members of the scientific community. During the summers my of Applied
he made the pilgrimage to Loch Ness. But it was not until Science, to sup-

1970 that Mackal himself actually saw the monster. port unusual ar-

He was retrieving hydrophones that had been set out eas of research.
to record underwater sounds when, out of the corner of his The academy
eye, he saw the water roil. A rubbery-looking triangular ob- had no official

ject popped out about a foot from the surface and then dis- university affilia-
appeared, to be followed by what seemed to be the smooth- tion or established

skinned back of an animal of some kind. After a minute or research program,

so the thing vanished without a trace. Having seen the but it did include

beast to his own satisfaction, Mackal continued to take an some individ-

interest in the pursuits of the LNI team, but he also felt free uals with
to turn his attention to other elusive beasts, including Ogo- impres- ^|

Biochemist Roy Mackal takes mock aim

with a crossbow armed with the biopsy
harpoon he designed in hopes of identifying
the Loch Ness monster through analysis
of tissue samples. The dartlike instrument
could also be mounted on a submarine
(opposite). The idea of taking such action
against Nessie outraged locals and pro-
voked a debate in the House of Lords, but
Mackal's harpoons never found their mark.

77
 The use of a new side-scan sonar
instrument by engineer Martin
Klein (center) provided Nessie
hunters Robert Rines (left) and
Tim Dinsdale (right) with tan-
talizing readings in September
1970. The device apparently
detected submerged, moving ob-
jects that were up to fifty times
the size of the largest fish
known to inhabit Loch Ness.

sive scientific credentials. And many of its interests coincid-

ed with those of the Loch Ness monster hunters.

Rines arrived at the lake in 1970. He brought along
Martin Klein, a fellow MIT graduate who had invented an
extremely sensitive type of side-scan sonar used in search-

ing for sunken ships and in offshore oil drilling. Rines was
immediately encouraged; Klein's invention indicated the
presence of large moving objects, ten to fifty times larger
than the biggest fish known to inhabit Loch Ness. It also

suggested the existence of underwater caverns in which the

monster might lurk.

The next year, Rines came equipped with an underwa-

ter camera synchronized to a powerful strobe light. It had ping off the 2,000-picture roll at the laboratory of a friend,
been loaned to him by Harold "Doc" Edgerton, an MIT pro- Charles Wyckoff, a photographic genius who had developed
fessor who had invented the strobe light and developed the high-speed film used to photograph atom-bomb tests.

time-lapse photography; for years, Edgerton had been the But then Rines and Wyckoff were astounded.
lighting expert for Jacques Cousteau, the undersea explorer, The first of the sonar-activated photographs seemed
and was known to Cousteau's crew as Papa Flash. Two to show the long, curving neck, bulbous torso, and front

years passed without event, and then in 1972, Rines was flippers of a huge animal. At the end of the long neck, part
finally rewarded with photographs that were to be among of which was eclipsed in shadow, was the suggestion of a
the most important and hotly debated exhibits in the case small head. Wyckoff calculated that the portion of the ani-
for the Loch Ness monster. mal shown must have been about twenty feet long— and
the very early hours of an August day, sonar equip- the body of the beast extended beyond the frame. More
ment on the LNI boat, Narwhal, picked up the presence amazing still was the second image; it was a close-up of a
In of a large, submerged object. Minutes later, salmon be- grotesquely wrinkled object. Were investigators finally
gan frantically leaping about the water's surface, evi- looking at the gnarled face of the Loch Ness monster? They
dently trying to escape some sort of predator. Sus- thought so. The Gargoyle Photograph, as it became known,
pended at a depth of about forty-five feet, the Edgerton showed what appeared to be two small eyes and two horn-
camera captured an extraordinary image. The photograph, like protuberances, their bilateral symmetry characteristic
enhanced by computer at the California Institute of Tech- of a living creature. Wyckoff estimated that the head was
nology's Jet Propulsion Laboratories, showed what many two feet long.
saw as a large fllpperlike limb of an unseen creature. Esti- The photographs provoked a furor that was unprece-
mates placed the Hipper length at about eight feet and its dented, even by the standards of Loch Ness. For the first
width at about lour feet '
I
Liter, Rines was to pro- time, the scientific community seemed prepared at least to
line c more tlr.imatic evidi consider the possibility of a creature in the lake and to spec-
I lline day in 1975. his u r cameras were ulate about its identity.
nai bou s apart. For Dr. George R. Zug, curator of reptiles and amphibians
id imme- at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natu-
) drop- ral History in Washington, DC, said he was convinced that

78
 ~1
*»
m

Encouraged by sonar readings he

had picked up at Loch Ness,
Robert Rines rigged an underwater
camera and strobe flash to the
sonar equipment and anchored it
on a shelf in Urquhart Bay. Any
movements within sonar range
were automatically recorded on a
graph (left) and on film. In August
1972, Rines's apparatus detected
a provocative image thought to
be a large fin or flipper (below).
While some critics discount this
photograph, other investigators
believe it proves that enormous

A ot^o oite unidentified creatures live in the

murky depths of the lake.

^
 photographers were perpetrating a
there was a population of large ani-
was obviously hoax. Sir Peter Scott had dubbed the
mals in the lake; it

impossible for a single beast to have

monster Nessiteras rhombopteryx,
survived since the Ice Age. Sir Peter
Greek for "the Ness marvel with the

Scott, who had been inspired by the diamond-shaped fin." Wags pointed

1972 flipper photograph to paint an out that the phrase could be read as

artist's impression of two Nessies an anagram for "Monster hoax by

and exhibit them in London with his Sir Peter S." Rines countered sharply

celebrated wildfowl paintings, urged with an anagram of his own, "Yes,

the Royal Society of Edinburgh and both pix are monsters. R."

associated universities to sponsor a The scorn was the most inten-

Loch Ness monster symposium to sive since the great hippopotamus-

review the photographs. To the print fraud of 1933. Yet all along,

monster hunters' delight, such a anyone offering evidence that the

conclave was indeed scheduled. beast existed had had to deal with a

But no sooner had the monster coterie of doubters determined to

hunters won some respect than their prove that it absolutely did not.

credibility collapsed. Word of the The first of the naysayers to

photographs was leaked to the publish his views had been Maurice

press, which promptly ran the news Burton, formerly of the British Muse-
under screaming headlines. Then, Robert Rines inspects an underwater camera um and a respected zoologist. At
scientists at the British Museum, used during his search for Nessie. Once activated by one time he had also been a firm be-
sonar, the shutter clicked at regular intervals
whom David James had asked to ex- until the object being tracked strayed out of range. liever in the monster. In fact, Dins-
amine the photographs, issued their dale had borrowed one of Burton's
verdict. The response dealt a body blow to the monster cameras to take with him on his first trip to the loch in 1960.

hunters' hopes of a hearing. Dinsdale, of course, had his famous sighting and had gone
None of the photographs proved that an animal exist- on to become a celebrity, while Burton remained in the
ed in Loch Ness, the scientists said. Instead, they theorized shadows. That fact, it has been suggested, may have influ-

that the image of a body and neck might actually be caused enced Burton's reversal of opinion.
by small gas bubbles in the air sacs of the larvae of phan- At any event, in a 1961 book titled The Elusive Monster,
tom midges, tiny, mosquito-like insects often found in Scot- the zoologist ventured that many of the monster sightings
tish lochs. As for the gar- were probably of otters,
goyle head, they said that it fish-eating aquatic mem-
could be a dead horse or bers of the weasel family
even a tree. The year-end that are known to inhabit
conference in Edinburgh the lake in some numbers.
was abruptly canceled. Otters are large, measuring
Worse, there were almost six feet at times.
now suggestions that the They have small heads,

Robert Rines's famous 1975 photograph

•a/5 thr .onstcr's homed head; more recent evidence
indu it the object may be a tree stump.
 This 1975 photograph by Rines may depict the head and body of a lake monster— or gas bubbles rising from the bottom.

long sinuous necks, and prominent tails, the whole covered been fooled by such things as boats, birds, and swimming
with a smooth, dark fur that glistens when wet. And, ac- deer, seen at a distance and distorted by mirages.

cording to Burton, they are highly elusive. "An otter may As for Dinsdale, Burton said, he had actually filmed a
work a river near a village and nobody be aware of its pres- local fishing boat; the humps on the monster's back were
ence," he stated. "It needs a pack of hounds to give any consistent with "a row of sou' westers worn by several men
certainty of bringing one to view." But the size 7 Illusion and sitting from stem to stern in a fifteen-foot dinghy— no un-
delusion, said Burton. An alarmed or curious otter might common sight on Loch Ness." But there Burton may have
stretch its already-substantial neck until it appeared to rise been on shaky ground, since most of the loch's fishermen
at least four feet out of the water- particularly to an impres- went out alone or in pairs.

sionable observer, who might then estimate the whole Burton argued that what really accounted for many of
creature to be twenty to twenty-five feet in length. "Most the sightings were large mats of rotting vegetable matter

people who have claimed to have seen this animal," contin- such as leaves, branches, and other debris. When these
ued Burton, "give evidence at thesame time of having ex- mats decompose and rise from the bottom, he said, they

perienced shock, surprise or even terror. At such moments release bubbles of gas that cause currents on the surface.

we tend to see things bigger than they are." The trouble with this theory is that such gas bubbles

All things considered, then, it appeared that the fa- apparently do not occur on Loch Ness. According to Ronald
mous Surgeon's Photograph of 1934 could well be that of Binns, another skeptic who set out to debunk the Loch Ness
an alarmed otter; Dr. Wilson had merely captured the head monster in his 1 983 book, The Loch Ness Mystery Solved, hu-
and neck of one of the animals. Other observers who mic acids in the lake prevent rapid putrefaction. As a result,

claimed to have seen the monster, Burton continued, had vegetable matter sinking to the floor of the lake crumbles to

81
powder, and no gas is generated Similarly, Binns dismissed announcement— concerning the 1972 flipper photograph.

another theory that the monster sightings are simply water- In view of their suspicions, the two engineers had
logged pine trees propelled by gases. asked the laboratory that carried out the computer en-
But Binns did agree with Burton that many of the so- hancement, a process it had performed for closeup photo-

called monsters glimpsed in the lake were actually mirages graphs of planets taken by space probes, to send them cop-

or otters, birds, deer, and other conventional animals. He ies of the enhanced flipper photograph. What they received

added that Dinsdale had been overexcited and subsisting was grainy and indistinct, in marked contrast to the pub-
on a few hours' sleep each night for a week during his April lished photograph. News stories about their findings

1960 visit and had thus unwittingly filmed a motorboat. seemed to accuse Rines of retouching. Rines retorted that
All of the important Rines photographs as well as the he had combined various enhancements to come up with
sonar findings continued to come under heavy criticism. In the flipper image. That was a standard procedure, he said,

1983 two American engineers, Alan Kielar and Rikki Raz- and the laboratory backed him up. But the accusation nev-
dan, borrowed the academy's raft on Loch Ness to set up ertheless tarnished the most convincing piece of evidence
144 sonar devices over the surface. Any object more than that Nessie did in fact exist.

ten feet long that passed be-

neath them would set off an
alarm, and the sonar would
track it automatically.
After several months
they returned home empty-
handed. When they reviewed
the academy's earlier data on
Nessie, they concluded that
many of the sonar contacts
had been caused by boats or
stationary objects and that
some of the data contained
mathematical errors. The en-
gineers also reported with
raised eyebrows that a local

woman had helped locate the

monster for Rines by dows-
ing But all of that was trivi-

al compared with their next

Sir Peter Scott based his 1973

painting Courtship In Loch Ness on
Robert Rines's flipper photo-
graph (page 79). Scott's creatures
MMath plciosaurs presum
nhlv exam f rrptllc\ that seem to
/If tome </rs<n/>n<>n\ <>/
 And there has been further criticism of the classic Sur- whose neck is protruding about four feet above water level.

geon's Photograph. A Scottish architect named Steuart In seeking to discredit the monster sightings, skeptics
Campbell, who has made a thorough study of the evidence have found ammunition in the numbers of outright hoaxers
concerning Nessie, asserts that the Wilson photograph is an and poseurs who have been involved in the Loch Ness
out-and-out hoax. Given the angle at which the camera had controversy. Of them all, the most outrageous may have
to be held and the lack of foreground in the picture, Camp- been Frank Searle, a self-styled "monster-hunter extraordi-

bell calculated, Wilson had to have stood about 200 feet nary," who was the bane of ordinary monster hunters for a

from the object he photographed, rather than the 600-plus number of years.
feet he had reported to Constance Whyte. By exaggerating A former British army paratrooper, Searle was man-
a
about his distance from the object, Campbell said, Wilson ager for a London fruit company when he set up a make-
was trying to pass off an otter as the monster. Yet another shift tent on a farm near Loch Ness in June 1969. The LNI
analysis, however, by two University of British Columbia accepted him at first as another devoted monster hunter,
oceanographers, purports to show that Wilson's controver- even lending him a movie camera for his pursuit. During the
sial photograph does indeed indicate a large creature next three years he claimed several sightings but did not
have any photographs to
show for his pains. Then his

luck abruptly changed.

In July 1972, Frank
Searle produced a photo-
graph that other investigators
hailed; it showed a large
hump in a swirl of water. A
few months afterward, he of-

more pictures -of

fered three
a series ofhumps, a neck,
and a large head — that he
took, he said, when the crea-
ture suddenly appeared be-
side his dinghy, dived, and re-

appeared on the other side.

Before long, Searle was put-

ting together a thick scrap-
book of Nessie cameos and
attracting international atten-

tion. However, he was also

becoming something of an
embarrassment for his egre-

gious hucksterism.
From the "Loch Ness In-

83
formation Center," a hut next to his new trailer home, he cult. Legend tells of a ghost ship, perhaps the one in which

sold postcards of some of his pictures as well as an audio- Saint Columba more than ,400 years ago,
traveled the loch 1

cassette of his version of the Loch Ness story. He published that appears to someone every 20 years, sailing through the
a book, Nessie: Seven Years in Search of the Monster, in nighttime waters, bluish and magical, with billowing sails

which he grumbled about his lack of official recognition; re- on its single mast and ropes neatly coiled on deck. It was
viled the efforts of the LNI, Rines, and Dinsdale; and boast- reportedly seen in 1922, 1942, and 1962; so far, though, no

ed of the young female "Loch Ness groupies" from abroad one has come forward to describe a 1982 visit. In the early

with whom he had shared his trailer. 1900s, Aleister Crowley, a well-known English practitioner
the years progressed, Searle lost whatever cred- of black magic, bought a house near the lake, declared him-

As ibility he had once enjoyed

vestigators. Skeptics

fellow witness to the

hooted
among Loch Ness
that he never

two-dozen sightings he
in-

had a
self a laird,

that his lodge

children; there
and supposedly summoned up such demons
keeper wentmad and tried to kill his wife and
were rumors of human sacrifices, and to this
claimed. Those who scrutinized his snapshots day the local folk avoid the place in fear.

thought that some of the "monsters" were nothing more An ambience of eeriness seems to envelop the mon-
than out-of-focus floating branches or trees. At one point, ster itself. Some feel that the presence is malevolent, so

Steuart Campbell accused Searle of actually faking photo- much so that in 1973, the Rev. Dr. Donald Omand per-
graphs, clumsily superimposing a picture of a reptile on a formed an exorcism of the evil atmosphere he felt in the
picture of the lake. area; he failed to exorcise the creature and came away con-
Yet Searle continued to attract naive tourists and oth- vinced that it caused "mental instability" in those who pur-
er gullible types, until finally, at the end of 1983, he sent out sued it. Dedicated monster hunters vigorously argue that
his last newsletter from Loch Ness, in which he announced point, though they confess to feelings of acute anxiety now
that he was leaving the lake in order to hunt for buried trea- and again. Over the years, many of them have fallen ill dur-
sure Ironically, he had outlasted many of the genuine re- ing their search. Tim Dinsdale, for one, sometimes experi-
searchers And, inadvertently, the controversy over his enced such sharp feelings of unease at several locations
snapshots highlighted one critical aspect of the monster along the shore that he wondered whether a violent history
hunt the difficulty of obtaining authentic photographs, a had left a permanent "residue of evil" at these places.
problem that has been characterized by people like Dins- Yet while Dinsdale did not dismiss the otherworldly
Loch Ness hoodoo aspects of the Loch Ness monster, he -like most of his col-
For photographers, the monster is the most frustrating leagues-persisted in the belief that there is some rational
ol subja is Uu i reature surfaces so quickly that even vet- explanation for all the many sightings over so many years.
nvestigal iqht unprepared and stare amazed One of the most popular and appealing theories continues
until i! submerges Sometimes it seems to materialize only to be that the creature is a plesiosaur, one of a small rem-
as a flu krr in the cornel urprisingly often, the nant population that somehow survived the last ice age and
II m.illun ,1 photographic adjusted to life in Loch Ness.
•
1
'
I in .ipparent Proponents of the plesiosaur theory point to the cap-
reatui [native ture in 1938 of a coelacanth, the huge prehistoric fish that

h and was believed to have met the plesiosaur's fate. Nor is the
plesiosaur the only ancient creature that has been nominat-
ed for Loch Ness. Indeed, it has even been suggested that
Nessie is an elongated version of a prehistoric worm. One aquatic that they could live and breed in the water as the
longtime monster watcher, a former marine engineer monster presumably does. Nor can they dive to the 700-foot
named F. W. Holiday, has argued that the monster is a giant levels where sonar has detected moving objects.
aquaticworm previously found only in fossil remains -and If the identity of the monster is a mystery, its numbers
at a maximum length of fourteen inches. But he has little are an even greater puzzle. Both monster hunters and skep-
company in that view. Critics point out that the worm could tics generally speak of a single creature, but two or three of
never match the monster in diameter. Only a few of the in- the creatures have sometimes been reported together, and
vertebrates, such as the giant squid and the octopus, are it is widely agreed that a solitary animal could not survive
large enough to approach the monster in size, and they do for centuries in the lake. Based on the size of the lake and
not resemble it in any other respect. its food supply, George Zug of the Smithsonian has estimat-
Many investigators, including Adrian Shine, an ener- ed that the number of Nessie-like creatures in the loch

getic London salesman and amateur naturalist who began could range from 10 to 20 individuals, if they weigh about
working with the LNI in the summer of 1973, think that a 3,000 pounds each, to as many as 150 animals weighing
species of fish, or perhaps a species of eel, is the most sen- 330 pounds each.
sible answer to the mystery of Loch Ness. The loch is rich in While others carry on that debate, the hunters want
salmon and eels, both of which can grow to considerable nothing more than to establish that Nessie exists. And so
lengths. Furthermore, they can travel swiftly and would year after year, Rines and his academy, along with other
rarely surface. But opponents of that theory note that fish investigators, have returned to the lake in hopes of putting
could not change depth levels at the rates established by that single all-important question to rest. But since 1975,

sonar tracking. Eels undulate from side to side, while the nothing has been as impressive as the Rines photographs.
Loch Ness monster reportedly undulates from top to bot-

tom. And if the monster were a fish, they say, what would It was on the strength of those photographs that the acade-

account for the land sightings? my returned to Loch Ness in 1976, with the financial sup-
reduces the field of known creatures to mam- port of the New York Times, to stage the most ambitious and
That mals. A likely contender, in the view of some scien- technologically sophisticated investigation yet. Rines as-
tists, is one of the orders of mammals, such as sembled a team of more than two dozen highly regarded
seals, whales, or sea cows, that are monster-size scientists, including Edgerton and Wyckoff, from the United
and capable of surviving for long periods in fresh States, Canada, and Britain. The expedition arrived with
water. Mackal, after considering candidates ranging from a 2,000 pounds of gear, and in June, deployed a veritable ar-
large sea slug to a giant, newtlike amphibian, finally seems senal of sonar devices and photographic equipment. The

to have settled on the zeuglodon, a long, serpentine, primi- imaging apparatus included a time-lapse, strobe-triggered
tive whale thought to have been extinct for 20 million years. 16-mm camera set to take a picture every fifteen seconds; a

Exceptionally long-necked seals and otters remain the pair of 35-mm stereo cameras mated to the most powerful
favorite candidates of those bent on explaining the monster strobe light yet used at Loch Ness; and a television camera
in conventional terms. But believers in Nessie as a wholly that would operate round-the-clock and produce a video
unconventional creature continue to argue, as did Sir Ed- record of everything that passed before its lens.

ward Mountain as far back as 1934, that seals tend to be The array was suspended 40 feet below a raft moored
sociable, frolicking in the water and loping onto land. Otters in 120 feet of water about 100 yards offshore from Temple
may indeed be of a more fugitive nature, but they are not so Pier, near Castle Urquhart. Power lines and a television ca-

85
 Members of an underwater expedition set up
a sonar-controlled camera in the murky waters
of Urquhart Bay. Dispatched to Loch Ness
in 1976 by National Geographic magazine, this
team tried to lure Nessie toward the lens
by displaying lights to catch the creature's eye,
and by broadcasting sounds of distressed
fish and putting bait in the water to whet its
appetite— all to no avail.

ble led to a control room in a small cottage on shore. By

means of the television, relays of scientists would monitor
camera popping away every fifteen sec-
the time-lapse
onds-and be prepared to punch in the high-powered
strobes for the 35-mm stereo cameras the instant they saw
anything suspicious.
For two months, the expedition members studied the
television monitor and scanned the waters of the lake with
their sonar. They returned home without clear proof one
way or the other. In an exceptionally hot, dry summer, tem-
peratures at the upper water levels of the lake had climbed
fifteen degrees from their normal forty-two degrees Fahren-
heit, and one theory was that most of the animal life had
gone deep; another was that the drought experienced that

summer had lowered water levels to the extent that salmon

were hampered in their spawning runs and were not in the

usual shallow areas of the lake to bring Nessie from the

depths in order to feed. The 108,000 photographs taken by
the strobe cameras had turned up scarcely any trout, salm-
on, or eels, let alone a monster. A high-resolution infrared
instrument, designed to detect temperature differences of
less than one degree, created by the creature's exhalations,
had also failed. The most substantial sonar discovery was a
sunken Wellington bomber that had been ditched over the
lake during a training mission in 1940.
Yet the expedition could not be considered a disap-
pointment, for there had been a number of fascinating and
tantalizing occurrences. Around midnight on June 16, for

example, Charles Wyckoff was watching the television

screen when he noticed that the nearby time-lapse camera
was fading out, as if silt were clouding the picture. That was
odd because there was nothing nearby to roil the water -at
least that he knew of. He triggered the strobe, but the water

was now so murky that he could barely make out the pow-
erful light. A few minutes later the water had cleared suffi-

ciently that he could again see the time-lapse camera -and

it seemed to be moving violently off-screen to the right. He
hit the strobe button again. The camera was gone.
An hour later, around 1 :00, the camera came back in-

87
 In a projectknowp as Operation Deepscan, twenty-four sonar-equipped boats swept
much of the twenty-four-mile length of Loch Ness in October 1987, creating a sonar curtain (below)
that no moving object could escape. While no definite evidence ofNessie was uncovered, some
researchers claim engine noise would have driven such a creature into hiding.

'

V :

•
/

9
 Adrian Shine, field leader of Operation
Deepscan, began exploring Loch Ness in the early 1970s.
Regarded by some as a publicity seeker, he
has also hunted the monster said to inhabit Loch Morar.

to view, apparently none the worse for wear. Wrote Dennis there was nothing. Had the monster arrived at last, only to
Meredith, managing editor of the magazine Technology Re- be put off by all the activity around the site? No one could
view and the expedition's chronicler: "The episode was know. But when the members left, wrote Meredith, "They
over, leaving Charlie mystified. He had no idea whether he took with them the dead certainty that there was a Loch
had encountered the creature. He was exhausted and went Ness monster. Any doubts had evaporated under the careful
to bed. It had been a harrowing night." examinations of the past evidence, the talks with the reli-

There were other strange doings as well. In late June, able local citizens, and their own evidence. Except for the
the scientists set up one of their so- sonar traces, the 1976 evidence for
nar devices to scan the area the animal was undoubtedly inad-
around the suspended cameras. missible scientifically. But in any
Anything swimming by would scientific controversy, the admissi-
show up as a trace. On June 20, ble evidence is merely the tip of the
they noticed two traces curving intellectual iceberg. Beneath the
across the screen— perhaps a pair solid, tangible proof, there is al-

Then on June 24,

of large salmon. ways the huge mass of hints and
they began picking up different indications, and even hunches,
traces— large solid objects much that support a theory."
bigger than fish. The objects pre- For those impeccable scien-
sented about a six-foot-wide target tists, Edgerton and Wyckoff, the
to the sonar beam and appeared at case was convincing enough for
7:18, 8:52, and 8:56 a.m., remain- them to write the words Nessiteras
ing in the beam for only a few sec- rhombopteryx—the. Ness marvel
onds before disappearing. On June with the diamond-shaped fin -be-

25 and 28, other large targets ap- side the sonar traces; that was the
peared in the sonar beam, too far away to be photographed. scientific name Sir Peter Scott had given the beast when he
Then at 10:44 p.m. on June 30, Charles Wyckoff's wife, himself became sure of its existence in 1962.
Helen, was monitoring the sonar and observed a large ob- And the evidence was enough for Rines, who has con-
ject enter the beam at about 120 yards out and gradually tinued every summer to press his quest for the monster
move closer until it stopped and hovered 80 yards away against the most discouraging odds. In 1979, he announced
from the camera. It was still too far away to photograph, plans to enlist the aid of a pair of dolphins, equipped with
and after a short time, it moved back and away. Finally, at sonar-triggered cameras and strobe lights. The idea was
5:00 a.m. on July 1 , the strongest trace of all-a target thirty that the dolphins, with their superb natural senses, would
feet wide— cut across beam about 100 yards from
the sonar find the monster, at which point the strobes would illumi-
the camera. Charles Wyckoff was on duty and watched with nate and the cameras document its existence. But before
rising excitement as the thing remained in the beam for the dolphins could be transported to Loch Ness, one of
about three minutes. Then he bolted from the cottage and them died and Rines decided to cancel the attempt.

rushed to the pier— "to be greeted," wrote Meredith, "only Meanwhile, the British had come back. Low in funds
by the gray mists hovering over the still waters." and morale, the LNl had shut down its camp and disbanded.
The last traces were observed on July 4, and after that But two years later many of the same people regrouped and

89
moved on to Loch Morar, on the west coast of Scotland, Later that year, another massive expedition was
where the monster Morag was said to dwell. According to launched under Shine's supervision. Called Operation
legend, a sighting of Morag was an omen of death for a Deepscan, it was the most comprehensive sonar probe ever
member of the Gilles clan. But for investigators, it breathed undertaken of the vast lake. Two dozen boats, lined up port

new life into the search for lake monsters. to starboard, dropped a sweeping sonar curtain into the
had been following the developments at Loch lake. For three days, the flotilla moved up and down Loch

They
Morar
Morag had made
since 1969, when word reached them
a violent appearance. On a sum-
that Ness like a waterborne chorus
the depths. Only three sonar contacts
line, continuously scanning
were registered, but

mer evening, according to the report, Morag one of them was baffling even to the somewhat skeptical

rammed into a boat occupied by two truck drivers engineers who had supplied the sonar. Not far from Urqu-
who were returning from a fishing trip. One of them, Dun- hart Castle, the sonar's graph recorder showed something
can McDonnell, tried to beat it off with an oar, but the oar large moving slowly more than 600 feet below the surface.

snapped It was only after his friend, William Simpson, Said Darrell Lowrance, president of a Tulsa, Oklahoma,
grabbed his rifle and fired a shot that the beast submerged. electronics company— who provided funding and sonar
For several summers, the Loch Ness hunters had peri- equipment for the project: "There's something here that we
odically interrupted their quest to take a busman's holiday don't understand, and there's something here that's larger
to Loch Morar to join the search for Morag. In 1974, they than a fish, maybe some species that hasn't been detected
shifted their headquarters there and renamed their endeav- before. 1 don't know."
or the Loch Ness and Morar Project, directed by Adrian Equally intriguing, Shine's expedition also produced
Shine But while the researchers' loyalties were now divid- an image, variously identified as a rotting tree stump or a
ed, they resumed work at Loch Ness, and in 1982, the lake rock outcropping, that seemed to resemble the celebrated
was again under scrutiny from water and air 1975 Gargoyle Photograph by Robert Rines. There was
That summer, the Loch Ness and Morar Project under- nothing to prove that the monster existed, and nothing to
took a 1 , 500-hour, day-and-night sonar sweep of Morar's prove that it did not. Inevitably, for the monster hunters,
waters The number of tracings was exceptionally high, and thatmeant adjourning the search for another summer,
most of them could not be attributed to fish -or, at least, when modern technology might finally prevail. Or perhaps
not to any known species of fish But nothing appeared on the monster itself would relent and pose briefly for one per-
the surface or In front of the underwater cameras -possibly fect photographic session that would establish its presence
lyear blimp arrived from its base in Italy to beyond all doubt.
join in the hunt and spent fifteen hours hovering over the To be sure, the naysayers were in the majority, and
its gargantuan shadow could have been enough to their numbers were growing as the might of science was
frighten any < reature back to its lair increasingly brought to bear on the mystery, without much
rhe lake was relative k quid for \'w<.- more years Then result. Nevertheless, it remained difficult to discredit all the
m the summer ol 19 ame the center ol attention evidence-all the sightings, the snapshots, the intriguing
he International ! . Cryptozoology, an orga- sonar returns-that had accumulated over the last half cen-
i the a lence tury Nor, for that matter, was it easy to dismiss out of hand
ill mc (
R yal Mu the folk wisdom of Highlanders such as the old patriarch
who some years ago remarked, "There's many a queer
"
thine; in that loch
An Elusive Creature of (he Congo

For more than two hundred years,

tales of a claw-footed, hippopotamus-size creature with a long
neck and tail have spread across central Africa. Canoes coming
near the beasts are instantly attacked, the stories say, and all
aboard are killed. It is also reported that a pygmy tribe speared one
of the animals to death and later feasted on its carcass; their vil-
lage was soon plagued with unusual house fires, illnesses, and
deaths. This fearsome tropical monster is known to the Congolese
people as Mokele-mbembe.
In 1980 and 1981, American biochemist Roy P. Mackal mount-
ed two expeditions into the treacherous Likouala swamp region, a
vast area of the People's Republic of the Congo that few humans
have penetrated, hoping to find and photograph one of the elusive
creatures. Working with his colleagues James Powell and Richard
Greenwell, Mackal collected dozens of firsthand descriptions of
the Mokele-mbembe from widely dispersed Congo natives. Many
of the reports were strikingly similar. And the animal's size, eating
habits, and general appearance proved remarkably consistent with
those of a small sauropod dinosaur, a creature thought to have
been extinct for more than 60 million years.
Mackal himself did not see the supposedly living dinosaur, but
Congolese biologist Marcellin Agnagna, who accompanied the
American on his second expedition, claims to have spotted one on
a subsequent trip. The tantalizing hunt for solid evidence of
Mokele-mbembe is chronicled on the following six pages.

0'
 •* ? * ..

Jfe
m
* j*. +>£

hard G„^..ri; and Ma Krtt,n Agnagna (^cnd and Mrdfron, rtgal).

.

Thick jungles and steamy rivers

and swamps cover much
of the African Congo, reputedly
the lair of the creature
called Mokele-mbembe. Deadly
snakes and crocodiles,
swarms of mosquitoes, and op-
pressive heat and humidity add
to the inhospitality of the
region. These formidable
CONGO

* conditions, posing considerable

hazard to explorers, have
remained virtually unchanged
for millions ofyears, suggest-
ing to some cryptozoologists
that it would be possible for
dinosaur-like animals to have
survived in the Congo and
lived on until the present day.
 Mackal examines an alleged Mokelembembe footprint. It could also, he noted, have been the print of a small elephant.

?fe*

9r*

itMokd, tairal
I
' »sol~- arm) stohmt
""" He told
,;ir ""'
.
liiiiAll

The landolphia fruit (right), said to

be the herbivorous Mokele-
mbembe's primary food, has an
"acrid sweet taste," according to
Mackal, "unlike anything else I
had ever eaten. " When waterways
became too shallow and clogged
for the dugout, the Mackal party
sometimes had to slog through the
swamps in waist-deep water.
Unnerving encounters with such
snakes as poisonous gaboons and
mambas made progress all the
more difficult. Below, accompa-
nied by a guide, Richard Greenwell
tries to keep his camera dry during
an excursion to look for lowland
gorillas— animals that proved every
bit as elusive as Mokele-mbembe.

:. .,'»
 CHAPTER 3

in Pursuit of Bigfoof and Yeti

hatever its nature, the creature was almost certainly female. She was
crouched over a fallen tree alongside the river when she heard a horse
snort. Startled, she rose up to her considerable full height and turned to

stare across the sun-dappled water at the two mounted men who had blun-
dered into her presence. The rushing of the stream must have muffled the
sounds of their approach.
Her sudden, looming appearance— and possibly her smell— spooked
the horses and set them to screaming and backing in fright. The nearest
horse reared so high that its seasoned rider slipped from the saddle to the
ground. The creature had seen enough. Appearing concerned but not espe-
cially alarmed, she began to lope away across the pebbles and the sandy
ground. The dismounted horseman struggled to his feet and stumbled to-
ward her, pointing something shiny in her direction, while his companion, a
little farther off, fought to control his mount and a packhorse.
The man whose horse had thrown him was Roger Patterson, a former
rodeo rider, a part-time inventor, and an avowed believer in the existence of
Bigfoot-the generic popular name for a race of hairy primates said to live in

the forests of the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and in adja-

cent Canada, where the creature is known as Sasquatch. Few people claim
to have sighted the animals, and the chief evidence of their existence-and
the source of their American name -is a series of improbably huge foot-
prints found over the years in isolated, heavily forested areas.

Patterson -short, sinewy, and durable looking-had already been

searching for Bigfoot for years, and now, in October of 1967, he was on his
quest once again. With his friend Bob Gimlin, a construction worker and
expert horseman, he had been camping out for more than seven days, look-
ing for tracks in reputed Bigfoot territory -the wooded highlands of northern
California near the Oregon border.
On Friday, October 20,
at about 1:15 in the afternoon, with Gimlin
img the packhorse, the two riders had been picking their way northward
along Bluti Creek, which flows eventually into the Klamath River. The shal-
low creek bed was about 100 feet wide; the creek itself was narrow and less
than a foot deep, to their left. Ahead of them, a fifteen-foot- But the real bonanza the men brought back from their

high tangle of logs and trees lay athwart the watercourse, expedition was the film -jumpy and hard to follow at the
obscuring their view. start, it was a mere twenty-four feet in length, running for

Just as they had come abreast of the logs, they report- just a minute or so of viewing time. But it was unprecedent-
ed later, they had confronted, with terrifying suddenness, ed in the often-bizarre search for evidence of Bigfoot. It

Patterson's long-sought quarry. The shiny object that Pat- showed a burly, broad-shouldered creature with large, pen-
terson dug out of his saddlebag when he regained his feet dulous breasts. Dark, reddish black hair covered her entire
was a rented 1 6-mm motion picture camera. In the hopes of body, except for parts of the face, her nipples, the palms of
producing a documentary film for television, Patterson had her hands, and the soles of her feet. Her head was carried
been taking scenic shots of Bigfoot country and keeping the so low on her shoulders that she appeared neckless, and
camera at hand for just such a circumstance. her forehead sloped back from her eyebrows to a high point
Patterson had started the camera running and had at the back of her head, reminiscent of the crested, massive
charged with it through the wet sand toward the creature— skull of a gorilla.

he had no doubt that it was a Bigfoot. As he plunged along, The creature loped away from the camera, swinging
waving the camera erratically, the creature moved away be- thick arms that were proportionately longer than a hu-
hind some low piles of logs and scrub. man's, pumping what seemed to be immensely powerful
"Cover me!" shouted Patterson. Gimlin drew his rifle legs. Both men recalled being struck by the smoothness of
from its scabbard, holding the weapon only at the ready- her gait as she calmly but quickly moved away from them.
the men had agreed earlier never to shoot a Bigfoot unless Later analysis of the film indicated that as each leg alter-
it threatened them. Patterson stopped running, crouched, nately received her weight, the knee remained bent, some-
and kept the camera pointed as best he could at the retreat- what like that of a cross-country skier. In contrast, humans
ing figure which, at one point, swiveled her torso and head normally take the body's weight on straight legs, bobbing
and looked back at her pursuers as she continued to stride up and down with each stride.

away from them. Although glimpsed only for a moment in the flesh, the

"Oh, my God, I'm out of film!" Patterson cried. He had creature was eventually viewed by millions of people as her
used most of it shooting scenery, and the rest of their film image flickered across their television screens. Those
supply was in the saddlebags on Patterson's horse, which twenty-four feet of controversial film excited and intrigued
had now bolted away out of sight, along with the pack ani- the general public. Most experts dismissed the whole epi-

mal. After some moments of confusion, the men decided it sode as a carefully contrived hoax. But some, after careful

would be wiser to collect their horses than to pursue the analysis, accepted the film as evidence that a race of giant,

creature into the trees. humanlike monsters— serene, secretive, and immensely
By the time they retrieved the animals from a meadow strong— might be found roaming the remaining patches of
about a mile downstream and returned to the site, the crea- the planet's wilderness.

ture was long gone. But Patterson had what he had come Throughout history, similar beings have been reported
for; in the sandy creek bed was a clear set of Bigfoot prints. in the remote corners of most of the earth's continents.
He and Gimlin quickly made plaster casts of the inch-deep Tales suggest that they have always been there, these hairy,
impressions. They were fourteen and a half inches long and bipedal creatures, occupying a niche somewhere between
five inches wide, and the creature's stride measured forty humans and the rest of the animal kingdom, lurking in the

to forty-two inches. farthest outskirts of civilization. Ancient Babylon had its

99
Enkidu, the hairy denizen of the epic of Gilgamesh, and the strangely like a human, dwells in the wild places. Only a

Anglo-Saxons thrilled to the menace of the giant Grendel, few decades ago, they point out, a hermit living in a shack

slainby Beowulf. Satyrs and other woods-dwelling beings went utterly undetected for more than ten years— in a small

haunted the Greeks A dictionary compiled during China's park in the city of Portland, Oregon. Surely, a cunning crea-

Chou dynasty in 200 BC described the feifei, a hairy, ten- ture of the wild could live in secret far from the regular

foot-tall creature that resembled humans as well as orang- haunts of humans.

utans but had a taste for human flesh.

Legends are no longer transmitted from generation to Perhaps the most widely celebrated of the elusive wilder-

generation over lonely campfires. Civilization, with its ad- ness monsters is the so-called Abominable Snowman— or
vanced methods of communication, has pushed its way into as Nepal's mountain-dwelling Sherpas say, yeh-teh, or

virtually every corner of a crowded globe, but these crea- Yeti- whose tracks have been often discovered in the frigid

tures will not go away. In an age of satellite surveillance lands of perpetual snow in the Himalayan regions of India,

and mechanized travel, strange beasts like Bigfoot are still Nepal, and Tibet. According to locals, the Yeti is but one of

spotted beyond the megalopolis and the freeway. In remote several unidentified creatures that inhabit the highlands of

areas of central Asia, there are persistent reports of a race southern Asia.
of subhumans called Almas, living in sociable groups and, of the first westerners to take note of the Yeti
in at least

sia is said
one case, mating with humans. Southern Malay-
to be the home of Orang-Dalam, a hairy, ten-foot
One may have been
Waddell. In 1889,
a British army major named
Waddell found what he took to
L. A.

creature that exudes a nauseating smell. be large footprints in the snow on a high peak
Most scientists greet such reports with derision. They northeast of Sikkim. Ten years later, in a memoir,
will grant that there are many new species of insects, ro- he wrote: "These were alleged to be the trail of the hairy
dents, reptiles, and perhaps even birds to be discovered wild man believed to live amongst the eternal snows. The
deep in the tropical rain forests, but they insist that the large belief in these creatures is universal among Tibetans." But
animals of the world have all been found and cataloged. To this account— as well as a smattering of other reports— was
be sure, a few sizable mammals turned up for the first time ignored in Europe and America for decades, until the crea-
as late as the twentieth century (page 20), but according to ture was popularized by an unwitting error in the transla-
the vast majority of zoologists, the world has been too tion of its Nepalese name.
much traveled, too well explored, for something as big as a In 1921, members of a British expedition climbing the
Sasquatch to suddenly appear some wilderness area. In-
in north face of Mount Everest noted, as they reached 17,000
deed, there is no true wilderness remaining, some scientists feet, some dark figures moving around on a snowfield
maintain, now that satellites are capable of beaming back above them. When the explorers reached the spot, the crea-
detailed photographs of nearly every square yard of the pla- tures were not there but apparently had left behind some
net's varied surface. huge, humanlike footprints in the snow. The leader of the
And yet, reports of startling encounters with hairy expedition, Lt. Col. Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury of the
pa >ming Some of the accounts are shown to be British army, later spoke of the incident with journalists in

fraudulent, some mistaken, and yet others remain to tanta- India, noting that his Sherpa guides called the elusive crea-
lize the Imagination, to challenge the conviction that the tures metoh-kangmi. In fact, the name was a generic Nepa-
mi me surprises. Even a few respected scien- lese term for several mountain creatures said to roam the
tists believe thai something unexpected, something area, but in the course of transmission to the world the
%? Mysteiy

sion. Skeptics at once disputed de

Loys's estimate of the animal's
height. One expert, however, fig-
ured the creature's size based on
the dimensions of a standard
fuel crateand agreed with the
geologist's account. A decade
of study yielded no insight
into the beast's identity. But
in 1931, an Italian anthro-
pological team ventured
into the jungle of British
Guiana, and while the
scientists did not observe
a creature matching
de Loys's description,
they did turn up
eyewitness ac-
counts startling-
ly similar to
de Loys's.

101
 Returning from the Himalayas in
1951, explorers Eric Shipton and
Michael Ward encountered strange
footprints, like a human's yet far
larger. Shipton 's photograph of such
a print, with an ice ax for scale
(inset), fueled the popular legend of
the Yeti—a primitive humanlike
creature. Some scientists claimed
that melting snow had distorted and
magnified the tracks, but they were
unable to cite any known animal
that might have left the prints.

word was mistakenly thought to be Tibetan and was trans-

lated as "Abominable Snowman."

Reporters were entranced, newspaper editors were

delighted, and the public was fascinated. Before long the
creature, thanks to its catchy name, became an internation-

al sensation. And mountaineers, always interested enough

in the conquest of Everest and other great Himalayan
peaks, would now have another reason to explore the high
snowfields— to find the Abominable Snowman.
But many who were prepared to grant the possibility

of the creatures' existence thought they were misnamed.

While such large animals might feasibly have reason to
venture into the snowfields— to store their food, to find a
particular kind of delicacy such as vitamin-rich lichen on
rocks, or simply to travel through a high pass— it did not
stand to reason that they could find enough food to live

there permanently. They would have to be denizens of the

high valley forests, not "snowmen."
Whatever their abode, reported sightings of large
tracks, and of the great creatures themselves, began to ac-

cumulate. In 1925, an adventuresome Greek photographer

named N. A. Tombazi was 15,000 feet up in the mountains
of Sikkim when his porters began shouting and pointing.

About 200 to 300 yards away, he glimpsed a figure that he

later described as "exactly like a human being, walking up-

right and stopping occasionally to uproot or pull at some
dwarf rhododendron bushes."
The unclothed creature quickly disappeared, but Tom-
bazi later found its tracks in the snow. Although shaped like

a human footprint, these impressions were both shorter-

only about six inches in length— and broader, measuring
four inches at the widest part of the foot.
This and other reports that followed in the 1 930s gave
rise to the thought that there might be more than one kind
of creature ranging through the snowy mountains. The
tracks reported by Tombazi were smaller than those of a
human; others, such as those seen by Howard-Bury, were
larger. But all of tne tracks resembled human footprints in

that they showed five toes and were plantigrade-that is,

103
 are told, because in downhill
the entire sole of the foot
touched the ground with each pursuit a Yeti's hair tends to

step the creature took. fall over its face.

Indeed, the Sherpas had During the international

always spoken of at least two strife and global war in the

types of creature, and used late 1930s and 1940s, the

different names in referring to abode of the Yeti was largely

each. All of them were known forgotten by the outside

as (eh, the Sherpa word for a world. But when peace re-
flesh-and-blood animal. But turned, attention was once
one kind, a large beast that again directed toward that
travels on all fours and stands high and desolate part of the

up only when it runs, they planet. One reason was the

called dzu-teh. Some re- drive of adventurers to scale

searchers think this is the rel- unconquered peaks. The

atively common Himalayan great barrier of mountains
black bear that often preys on that extends from the Kara-
the yak herds of the region. koram range of Pakistan to
For the other, smaller A Tibetan lama displays a centuries-old sacred scalp, supposed- the Himalayas attracted a
ly that of a Yeti, in I960. Scientists later determined that the scalp
denizen of the high places, belonged to a serow, a member of the goat-antelope family. number of mountain climb-
the Sherpas have two terms. ers. The ultimate challenge
One, inch tch, means man-beast. The other, more familiar for them was Mount Everest, at 29,028 feet the world's
term ych tch refers to an animal that inhabits rocky places. highest mountain, lying athwart the Nepal-Tibet border in
rhe Sherpas think of this smaller animal as a nearly the heart of Yeti country.
hum. m size era I < reature that lives at the tree line, often In 1951, the Everest Reconnaissance Expedition set
venturing upward Into the perpetual snow, sometimes out to evaluate routes for an attempt to ascend Everest. At
moving down the mountainside to pilfer food from a village 18,000 feet, two of the climbers encountered fresh tracks,
or prey on <i yak herd D as having pointed heads, which they followed along the edge of the Menlung Glacier
ing below the knees, and a covering of red- for nearly a mile. According to expedition leader Eric Ship-
dish h.nr, the Yeti would seem to be a smaller version of ton, writing later in the Times of London, "the tracks were
North America though most investigators insist mostly distorted by melting into oval impressions, slightly
th.it the two ( reatures are entirely different longer and a good deal broader than those made by our
to the Sherpas the fetl is .1 familial figure thai they large mountain boots. But here and there where the snow
iu orporated Into theii I ilklore with more humor than covering the ice was thin, we came upon a well-preserved
: .lie so pen impression of the creature's foot. It showed three broad
to run 1
ding them toes and a broad thumb' to the side." The clearest of the
ire 1
d into impressions measured thirteen by eight inches.
.<
Shipton was a seasoned climber who had scaled
In rui mountains throughout the world, and his experiences could
not be taken lightly. The publication of his report, accompa- pression that resembles a large human print. The evidence
nied by photographs of the tracks, caused a new explosion was thus inconclusive.
of interest in the Yeti. Several expeditions were mounted, In 1957, an American millionaire, Tom Slick, who had
including one ambitious effort financed in 1954 by the Lon- made his fortune from aviation, oil, and other endeavors,
don Daily Mail. Led by reporter Ralph Izzard, the team made financed the first of three major expeditions to the Hima-
an effort to achieve scientific plausibility by including two layas to find a Yeti. None of his three efforts found much
zoologists. But the results of the search were disappoint- more by way of evidence than had the Daily Mail expedition.
ing—perhaps because it was conducted for the most part in But neither did they dispel the persistent belief that there
the snowfields instead of in the high forests and rocky plac- was something to the Yeti that went beyond local legend

es where, presumably, Yetis spend most of their time. The and imagination.
explorers found some ambiguous footprints and a few re- That belief was dealt a considerable blow when Sir

puted Yeti scalps that, embarrassingly, turned out to be Edmund Hillary, knighted for his conquest of Everest in

pieces of goatskin. 1953, returned from the Himalayan Scientific and Moun-
During the following months, several additional sight- taineering Expedition of 1960-1961. In addition to conduct-

ings of Yeti tracks were reported, all the way from the west- ing research on human physiology at high altitudes, Hillary
ern Karakoram to the easternmost Himalayas. But skeptics and his team investigated
pointed out that melting snow can enlarge small, well- the question of the
defined tracks, transforming them into bigger, less well- Yeti. They found a
defined ones. They also called attention to the fact that few of the foot-

bears of the region, when walking, place the hind foot in the prints—but the
spot just relinquished by the forefoot, often leaving an im- renowned Hil-

SirEdmund Hillary displays an artist's conception of a Yeti, the beast

he hoped to find on a I960 Himalayan expedition. During the trek
Hillary examined footprints, furs, and scalps, but concluded there was
no scientific basis for the Yeti legend.
lary pronounced them to be ordinary animal tracks en- of the Yeti's existence convincing, but he said the animal

larged and distorted by melting. The expedition also bor- was clearly a creature of the "rhododendron thickets of the
rowed a supposed Yeti scalp from a Buddhist monastery, lower parts of the valleys, and it is here that future search

but the scalp turned out to be made of the skin of a serow, should be directed." But, perhaps as a consequence of Hil-

an ungainly goatlike animal of the region. lary's well-publicized skepticism, organized searches for

Hillary noted that Sherpas make little distinction be- the elusive creature became rare. Although occasional re-

tween their metaphysical world and objective reality. They ports of tracks found and sightings made continued to trick-

firmly believe, for example, that the Yeti can make itself in- le in throughout the 1960s and 1970s and into the 1980s,

visible and then reappear at will. In Hillary's view, it all they remain inconclusive.

amounted to nothing more than a "fascinating fairy tale,

born of the rare and frightening view of strange animals, Equally inconclusive are recurrent reports from the expan-

molded by superstition, and enthusiastically nurtured by sive land to the north of the Yeti's lofty country in central

Western expeditions." Asia, once the domain of Mongol warlords Genghis Khan
That same year, a respected British primatologist, Wil- and Tamerlane, today the heartland of the Soviet Union.
liam C Osman Hill, sprang to the Yeti's defense and labeled This region of rugged mountain chains and broad deserts

Hillary's conclusions "rather hasty." Hill found the evidence stretches from the Caucasus to the borders of China. It is

Soviet investigator Igor Bourstev ponders a skull said to be that of

the son of a human male and an Almas female known as Zona. Reportedly held
captive in the Caucasus during the nineteenth century, Zona sup-
posedly bore four human-Almas babies.
widely believed to be the home of yet another race of wild, ger's account, which is now known as Przewalski's horse.
man-size creatures with dark pelts. Another report has it that in 1906, a Mongolian schol-
There are as many names for them as there are lan- ar named Badzar Baradiin was on a caravan through the
guages in this polyglot region: In Mongolia they are called desert of Alashan when, just before sunset, the caravan
the Almas, or wild men. Unlike the Yeti, little mythology or leader called out in fear. Everyone could see a hairy man
superstition surrounds the creatures; instead, they are tak- standing on a hill, silhouetted against the sunset. The crea-
en for granted as a part of the local fauna. They are not ture watched the expedition for a moment or two and then
considered to be anything to get excited about, merely a ran off into the desert. Afterward, when he was writing the
race of lesser humans who mean no harm. Indeed, for a official account of his expedition, Baradiin was reportedly
long time they were listed in standard natural histories of instructed by the president of the Imperial Geographical So-
the area, along with bears, deer, and other unexceptional ciety to omit any mention of his encounter with an Almas.
creatures. And a staid nineteenth-century Mongolian book In recent years, however, some doubt has been cast on this

of natural pharmacology even reported that the gall of the sighting: Modern-day researchers who obtained Baradiin's
Almas "cures jaundice." original travel journal discovered that it contains no refer-
One of the earliest descriptions of the Almas by a Eu- ence to such an event.
ropean was that of a Bavarian nobleman, Hans Schiltber- the truth about Baradiin's experience,
ger, who in the early fifteenth century was captured by
Whatever
handful a of Russian and Mongolian scholars
Turks and given by them to a Mongol prince named Egidi. have continued to take an interest in the Almas
During his captivity, Schiltberger was taken to an area that question, usually without governmental en-
is thought to be the Tien Shan range in western Mongolia. couragement. The descriptions they have col-
"In the mountains themselves live wild people, who lected are remarkably similar. In general, Almas are said to

have nothing in common with other humans," Schiltberger be of medium human height— about five feet, five inches—
wrote in 1430, some time after his escape from captivity. "A and are covered with dark, often reddish hair. Their long
pelt covers the entire body of these creatures. Only the arms reach below their knees, and they have stooped
hands and face are free of hair. They run around in the hills shoulders and narrow chests; they walk with their knees
like animals and eat foliage and grass and whatever else flexed, and are reported awkwardly at best— al-
to run

they can find. The made Egidi a present

lord of the territory though they generally seem to run fast enough to have

of a couple of forest people, a man and a woman. They had avoided capture. The forehead reportedly slopes backward

been caught in the wilderness, together with three untamed from a bony crest over the eyes, and the lower jaw is mas-
horses the size of asses." sive but chinless. The feet are broad, with splayed toes; the
Such a tale might well be dismissed as typical of the big toe is smaller than a human's and is sometimes set

fabulous stories related by travelers of the time, but the apart from the other toes. The hands are humanlike, how-
mention of the small horses gave the report belated sub- ever, with long fingers.

stantiation of a sort. In 1871, more than four centuries after According to the reports, Almas are generally noctur-
Schiltberger's enforced sojourn in Mongolia, a Russian ex- nal and stay away from humans, although every now and
plorer named Nikolai Przewalski collected reports of "wild then they are sighted in the vicinity of farms and have been
men" while on an expedition to Mongolia. In addition, he said to raid cornfields. Jsually, the creatures are seen one
collected specimens of the wild, dun-colored Mongolian at a time or in pairs, and at a distance. A typical sighting

horse, presumably the "untamed horses" of Schiltber- was reported in 1963 by Ivan Ivlov, a Russian pediatrician

107
" b) an Aln the legendary wild man of central Asia. Soviet researchers st
 &'

£• x
*. •

itness reports and sketched the Almas (inset) as a robust creature with sloping forehead, bulging brows, and marsh/e lower jaw.

109
working in Mongolia. Ivlov had heard about the Almas but Her skin was dark brown and she was covered with
was highly skeptical. Then one day, while traveling in the reddish black hair; a shock of black hair on her head hung
Altaimountains of southern Mongolia, he claimed to have down like a mane. Her face was described as terrifying; her

spotted an Almas family-a male, female, and child-about large teeth were set in a powerful jaw, and she had high
half a mile distant. According to Ivlov's account, he was cheekbones, a flat nose, and red-tinged eyes. She was large

able to watch them through his binoculars for some time, and extremely strong.
until they moved away behind a rock. Although Zana never learned to talk, she made mut-
Occasionally, there are reports that one of the Almas tering sounds. Eventually, she did learn to do various
has been captured. In about 1910, for example, a Russian chores at her master's command, but only outdoors— she
zoologist named V. A. Khaklov met a Kazakh herdsman could not endure heated rooms. And she had a peculiar
who claimed that he had once observed a female Almas habit that would in time give Almas researchers a clue to
over a period of several weeks. She had been captured by her possible origins; she spent a great deal of time deter-
some farmers and chained to a mill, he said, and was later minedly grinding round stones against each other and
set free. Her physical description contained nothing new, banging them together.
but the herdsman offered rare details of Almas behavior. In 1964, a Russian historian named Boris Porshnev
As Khaklov recorded the herdsman's account: "This visited the place where Zana had reportedly lived, hoping to
creature was usually quite silent, but she screeched and gather firsthand accounts of her from the townspeople. The
bared her teeth on being approached. She had a peculiar men and women of the Caucasus are noted for their lon-
way of lying down, or sleeping; she squatted on her knees gevity, and Porshnev talked to several centenarians who
and elbows, resting her forehead on the ground, and her claimed to have known her and attended her funeral. Most
hands were folded over the back of her head. She would eat intriguing of all, perhaps, he even visited two of Zana's sup-
only raw meat, some vegetables and grain, and sometimes posed grandchildren.
insects which she caught When drinking water she would it was said, had become pregnant several
lap in animal fashion, or
"
sometimes dip her arm into the Zana, times, evidently by different men. She would give
water and lick her fur birth unassisted, and at first would carry the infant
The most intriguing account of an Almas, however, is to the river to wash it. But the newborn half-breeds
the story of Zana, a female that is said to have lived out her did not survive immersion in the cold water, and
adult Ufe In the late nineteenth century as a slave on a farm the villagers began to take her babies away to be reared by
m the Caucasus. No one knows where she was captured or human families. In all, two sons and two daughters are said
how many times she changed hands. But eventually, as an to have survived.
dult, she was reportedly taken in chains by a man named According to the villagers, Zana's offspring differed
f dgl cienaba and put in a stone pen on his farm on the River only slightly from other children. Their appearance was not
POT a time, Zana seemed so vicious and violent that only human, but almost ordinary-except for their swarthi-
no one on the farm would dare enter the enclosure; her ness. They learned to speak normally, and their behavior
.imply thrown ova the wall. She slept in a hole was acceptable, if somewhat unruly. The younger son,
hI dug in the dirt Attn his type o\ named Khvit, had been a farm worker, and was recalled as
onflnement, she .
me docile "extremely strong, difficult to deal with, and wild and turbu-
n was lent He had a high-pitched voice and was noted as an ac-
complished singer.
 The Enigmatic Iceman

In late 1968, the Scottish-bom declined to be drawn into the case, but
writerand zoologist Ivan T. Hansen added the bureau's prestige to
Sanderson and his French his ballyhoo. Displaying his model in a
colleague Bernard Heuvel- Minnesota shopping center, the
mans learned that a strange showman proclaimed that the beast
apelike creature, frozen had been "investigated by the FBI."
in a block of ice, had been Meanwhile, inquiries by Sanderson
exhibited at a Chicago and the Smithsonian had uncovered
livestock fair. Details of the three West Coast companies that
creature's appearance claimed to have fashioned
intrigued the two scientists, an Iceman for Hansen out of
and they contacted the latex and hair as early as
manager of the exhibit, Frank one year before the two
Hansen. He encouraged the zoologists heard of
scientists to examine the Hansen's exhibit. More
so-called Iceman at his farm intriguing, when Hansen
near Winona, Minnesota. took his show on the road
According to Hansen, a vet- again in 1969, it appeared
eran carnival huckster who at that the creature was indeed
times varied his tale, the different from the one
creature had been found off inspected by Sanderson and
the coast of Siberia by either Heuvelmans. For some, this
Russian sealers or Japanese confirmed Hansen's
whalers, floating in a 6,000- assertion that there was a
pound block of ice. Later, the copy and an original; others,
Iceman had turned up in a however, suspected that a
Hong Kong emporium, where frozen, flesh-and-blood
the creature was purchased by an From his observation of
Iceman had never existed
agent for an anonymous American Hansen's ice-encased crea- and that there had instead
millionaire. Hansen subsequently rent- ture (above), zoologist Ber- been several latex versions.
ed the Iceman and exhibited him at nard Heuvelmans developed Increasing incredulity did
a speculative drawing of a
carnivals for thirty-five cents a peek. not deter Hansen. He soon
thawed Iceman (right). The
Sanderson and Heuvelmans spent scientist concluded that the surfaced with yet another
two days studying and photographing specimen was about six feet story about the Iceman's
the specimen through the glass lid of tall and hairy, with long origins, meant to account
its insulated, refrigerated coffin. The
arms and massive hands. for the apparent bullet
thick ice, frosted in some areas and had been returned to its owner and wound. This time Hansen confessed to
nearly opaque in others, obscured would probably not be exhibited again. having shot a strange creature in the
much of the creature and prevented He further explained that a synthetic woods of northern Minnesota while on
close inspection. Nevertheless, Heuvel- copy of the original had been made, a hunting trip. He left the beast in the
mans declared the frozen mass to be and this copy was now on exhibit. woods, he said, but retrieved it later
an unknown hominid, a type of Nean- With the genuine Iceman supposedly that winter. Hansen took the corpse
derthal man, and published his conclu- unavailable, the already-dubious home and placed it in his freezer until,
sions in a Belgian scientific journal. Smithsonian experts prepared to bow seven years later, he decided to exhibit
Sanderson believed the creature to be out, but not before they expressed a the icy remains at carnivals and fairs.
an "ultra-primitive, anthropoid-like few concerns to the Federal Bureau of In spite of Hansen's constantly
primate" but felt further study was in Investigation. Evidently, Heuvelmans revised tales, Sanderson and Heuvel-
order. He contacted the Smithsonian had noted in his examination of the mans stood firm, convinced that they
Institution and suggested that the creature what appeared to be a bullet had studied a strange, rare creature.
museum study the Iceman. hole through the right eye. If, as he But the truth about the Iceman's
When museum officials requested and Sanderson concluded, the creature identity has remained uncertain,
permission to examine the specimen, had been alive in recent times, the cloaked in mystery and perhaps still

however, Hansen announced that it wound suggested foul play. The FBI frozen in a block of murky ice.

111
 The discovery late in 1 980 of the
preserved hands (right) and feet of
a supposed Chinese Wildman
sparked new interest in the legend-
ary creature. This particular
beast -described as three feet
tall, with long brown hair and a
humanlike face-was killed
In 957. Analysis of the severed
1

appendages showed they be-

longed to a large macaque mon-
key, possibly of a new subspecies.

Porshnev reported visit-

ing two of Khvit's children a

few years after the death of

"From the mo-
their father.

ment saw Zana's grandchil-

I

dren,'' Porshnev wrote, "I

was impressed by their dark
skin and negroid looks. Shali-
kula, the grandson, has un-

usually powerful jaw mus-

cles, and he can pick up a
chair, with a man sitting on it,

with his teeth."

During the next few years, Porshnev and a colleague might also link her with ancestors of the Pleistocene epoch.
made repeated attempts to find Zana's remains in the Gen- More recently, a Russian anatomist and mountain
aba family graveyard, by then overgrown with weeds. Al- climber named Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, has spent many
though they did uncover the vaguely Neanderthaloid re- years collecting and analyzing accounts of the Almas, using
mains of what may have been one of Zana's children, they sophisticated statistical procedures. Her analyses have add-
never found the supposed Almas herself. ed new detail to the picture of the Almas. She has conclud-
Despite the lack of concrete evidence, the story of ed that it is a territorial animal and that it migrates up and
Zana convinced Porshnev that the Almas are relict Nean- down, from high forest to valley floor, with the seasonal

derthals, a belief shared by some other researchers. The changes in vegetation.

original Neanderthals, who roamed what is now central Koffmann has also proposed that human population
Asia and Europe before being supplanted by Cro-Magnon pressures in the Caucasus are squeezing the Almas popula-
man about 40,000 years ago, are considered by most pa- tion to the point of vanishing. Where sightings were once
leoanthropologists to have been a human subspecies, not plentiful, they are now few: "We witness," she wrote in
very different biologically from ourselves. 1984, "the end of the Caucasus hominoid." Similar tales of
presumed closeness of the relationship means woe are heard from its supposed Mongolian haunts, where
The thai humans and Neanderthals could have inter-
bred Indeed, some experts believe the ancient race
the Almas might soon join Przewalski's horse
of animals that are extinct in the wild.
on the roster

Ctinguished bill was merely absorbed by Whatever their fate, the Almas remain an enigma
the dominant human hue Because is generally it shrouded by official Soviet skepticism and secrecy. If there
not possible tor an Individual oi one spe< ies to produce vi is any convincing physical evidence -such as a body or a
able young by mating with an Individual ol another sr> living captive the rest of the world has not been told of it.

I /ana's grandi hililren is thought by some to

Porshn V .
the Almas are rem A breed ol hairy hominoid is also said to roam the People's
:

u itu .
Republic of China, where the creature has been given the
ng round [ether perhaps, m < ord riptive name of Wildman. Sightings of Wildmen have
:

me tools, an urge that been reported for centuries, and are particularly plentiful in

112
the southern tier of Chinese provinces, where enormous bei Province came across a large, hairy creature standing in
forests cloak the landscape. the road, lit by their headlights. Several men went to inves-

The first recorded sighting by a scientist occurred in tigate, approaching to within a yard or two of the beast.

1950, when named Fan Jingquan reported his

a geologist They later telegraphed a report to the Chinese Academy of
distant observation of two Wildmen— a mother and son— in Sciences, insisting that the creature was not a bear or any
a forest in Shanxi Province. In 1961, when road builders other animal they knew.
working in a thickly forested area of Yunnan Province re- A protracted hunt ensued, involving nearly a hundred
ported that they had killed a female Wildman, the Chinese scientists and their assistants, aided by army units, all of
Academy of Sciences dispatched a team to the spot. The whom combed an area of 500 square miles for a period of

investigators found no body but concluded that the ani- two years. The leader of this search was Zhou Guoxing, a
mal—which was only about four feet tall— probably had paleoanthropologist at the Beijing Natural History Museum,
been an ordinary gibbon. who was undaunted when the search turned up only indi-

As elsewhere, most Chinese scientists were skeptical. rect evidence of the creature— consisting chiefly of oversize
But reports persisted. In 1976, for example, a caravan of footprints, strands of hair, and feces.

foresters driving through the Shennongjia mountains of Hu- The publicity triggered many new reports. One intrigu-

Chinese peasant Gong Yulan shows scientists the tree where, in

June 1976, she observed a shaggy, humanlike beast scratching its back. Hair
recovered from the bark was judged that of an unknown higher primate.

113
 type of monkey, probably an un-
According to hundreds of eyewitness re-
ports, the rugged terrain of the Pacific Northwest known species of macaque—
(opposite) is home to Sasquatch-or Bigfoot.
Shown here are sketches by some who claim to creature whose existence could
have seen such creatures. account for occasional reports

was related by a commune team of smaller-than-human Wild-

ing account

leader, Pang Gensheng, who said he en- men in the remote forests of
countered a hairy Wildman while out chop- southern China.

ping wood. Anything but reclusive, this spec- But Guoxing still believes

imen boldly approached the that the existence of a large,

apprehensive Gensheng, nocturnal, omnivorous primate

who backed away until he in the thickets of the vast Chi-

was against the base of a nese forests makes perfectly

cliff and could go no farther. good biological and ecological
The beast kept coming until sense. In most areas where
it was only five feet away- Wildmen are reported today, the

at which point, Gensheng forest has changed little over the

said, he raised his ax. millennia. Clearly, this is a sta-
The two stood thus for A Montana teenager drew two views of the ble environment that could also
Bigfoot he claimed to have seen in 1 976.
what Gensheng said was be conducive to the persistence
nearly an hour. Then he threw a rock, hit- of animal life it. And in a relatively recent
well adapted to

ting the beast in the chest. It howled and geological epoch-the Pleistocene, which ended 10,000
scampered off muttering, pausing to lean years ago— one of the dominant animals in the region was
briefly against a tree before it disappeared evidently a large, apelike creature called Gigantopithecus.
into a gully. Gensheng described his unex- Long presumed extinct, this giant is known to scien-

pected visitor as tists only through fossilized jaws and teeth. Most of the spe-
seven feet tall with cies that shared the epoch with it have also disappeared.
wide shoulders, a But, Guoxing points out, not all. Among the known survi-

wniiam Roe sloping forehead, vors are the tapir and the giant panda, an extremely elusive
saw
allegedly this
Sasquatch In
apd ,
° arms denizen of the high bamboo forests of Szechuan.
British Columbia Dozens of It seems reasonable to Guoxing and others to think
in I9S5.
similar ron
.i-.ll,,. „ rtc
reports, .

that Gigantopithecus, which some

many sets of tracks, and other indi- say was an ape and others argue
rect evidence-such as hair that was an early prehominid, contin-
upon analysis seemed to be from ued to thrive in the remote forests
>wn animal-have convinced of the region. Instead of dying
Zhou Guoxing and some other Chi- out, these researchers surmise,
nese scientists that the Wildman the creature may have evolved in-
\ing freely admits to the Wildman of and-
today,
istrating task. given the propensity of man and
Net I
ffl mti fa sei other animals to move widely
intend with, but as he across the surface of the earth
into the storied North American
This beast was reportedly Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, as well.
ttve ^totted by an Oregon
teacher in 1971.
No one knows exactly when
Guoxln humans first reached the North
rved American continent. But there is
hands and reel I to i Wild little doubt that they came from
man rhe .. ii the
Oregon logger Jack Cochran spied this
thing in tte 1

curious creature in 1974.

-
Asia and crossed the northern Pacific in the region of the woods." And it is in the continent's heavily wooded regions

Bering Strait, probably in pursuit of game. Their crossing that later white immigrants have also encountered the crea-

was made possible, as was the migration of other species of ture or observed signs of its passage.

mammals from time to time during thousands of years, Apparently, reports of such encounters began in the

when the advance of Ice Age glaciers resulted in a decrease nineteenth century. In 1811, while crossing the northern

in sea level so that a land bridge appeared between Rocky Mountains, a Canadian trader named David Thomp-
present-day Siberia and Alaska. son saw huge tracks, measuring some fourteen by eight
about 10,000 years ago, people of Mongoloid inches, in the snow near what is now Jasper, Alberta. On
stock had spread through North and South Amer- July 4, 1884, a newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, re-
ica. Perhaps they carried with them ancient tribal ported that a train crew had captured a short, long-armed,

By memories of giant hairy monsters whose unearth-

ly howls had pierced the Asian
may even have been preceded or followed by these very
night. Indeed, they
manlike creature covered with coarse black
named
is
the immensely powerful creature Jacko. Jacko's
not known; he simply disappeared from the record, either
hair. They
fate

giants. At any rate, accounts of the giants have persisted a chimpanzee escaped from a circus or, some suggest, a
among some American Indians; not in the desert areas or juvenile Sasquatch.

the plains, to be sure, but among those tribes that took up Over the decades, there were sporadic reports of sim-
residence in forested lands, most notably the high forests of ilar encounters, most of them from British Columbia, many
the Pacific Northwest. of them fantastic. One had to do with several hairy giants
From one of these tribes, the Salish of British Colum- who attacked a prospector's shack near Kelso, Washington.
bia, comes the popular name Sasquatch; the Huppas of But the world paid little heed to such stories; most people
northern California call it oh-mah-ah, shortened to omah. who thought about the Sasquatch at all relegated it to the
Here there is no linguistic confusion about snowmen; the realm of hoax, delusion, or Indian legend.
various names mean, quite simply, "wild men of the But in the early 1950s, when Eric Shipton's photo-
graph of the huge Yeti track on Mount
Everest drew international attention, a
handful of North Americans began to
look more closely at reports of their own
legendary giant. One of these investiga-
? tors was an amiable newsman named
John Green. At first Green began to look
into Sasquatch stories because he
thought they might increase the circula-
tion of the small newspaper he had just

bought in Aggasiz, British Columbia. But

he soon became the continent's most
prodigious compiler of information on
the subject, eventually turning the news-
paper over to his wife so he could work
full time on Sasquatch.

Retired logger Albert Ostman (at right in photo)

claimed he had never heard of a Sasquatch
until a 1924 camping trip in British Columbia -
where, he says, he was held captive by a
Sasquatch family for six days. Fearing ridicule,
Ostman kept his experience secret un-
til Bigfoot investigator Rene Dahinden (left)
interviewed him in 1957.
 ,

Another enthusiast of the time was Rene Dahinden, a young woman from a spa in nearby Harrison Hot Springs, it

Swiss-born Canadian who pursued Sasquatch with such was in fact an April Fool's Day joke. But the Aggasiz town
fervent single-minded purpose that it cost him his marriage. fathers were amused that when they later had to
sufficiently

After more than thirty years of following the creature's tan- come up with way to celebrate the British Columbia
a local
talizing trails— sometimes in collaboration with Green— Da- centennial, they decided to sponsor a mock Sasquatch
hinden would remain fiercely devoted to the search for Big- hunt. This good-natured spoof drew light-hearted attention

foot. "Women?" he once scoffed to an interviewer, "1 don't from the international press— and a serious visit from the
have time for them." earnest Rene Dahinden, who was embarrassed to learn that

John Green's first Sasquatch story appeared on April 1 the hunt was all in fun.

1955. A fanciful account of a hairy giant carrying off a But the fanfare also put Green in touch with a number
of local people who did not think Sasquatch was a joke at
all. He heard from people who seemed reliable and had
seen huge, humanlike tracks, measuring as much as sixteen
inches by eight inches, in the region. And he also obtained
the sworn statement of a trapper named William Roe, who
had been poking around a deserted gold mine near Jasper,

Alberta, that year and had encountered what at first he took

to be a grizzly bear.
"Then saw it was not a bear," said Roe. "My first
I

impression was of a huge man, about six feet tall, almost

three feet wide and probably weighing somewhere near 300
pounds. It was covered from head to foot with dark brown,
silver-tipped hair." Roe watched unseen as the creature ap-
proached him — he could
see now that it was a fe-

male—and, squatting, be-

gan to strip leaves from
branches with her teeth,

much as an ape might do.

Then it spotted Roe
in the bushes. "A look of
amazement crossed its

face. Still in a crouched po-

sition, it backed up three or
four short steps, then
straightened up to its full

height." At that, it walked

away. Roe considered
shooting the creature, but
In 1967, at Blue Creek Mountain
in northern California, hundreds of
tracks said to be those of a Big-
foot were found in an area being
cleared for a new road (left). The
largest prints, reported by expert
Rene Dahinden (above) to be fif-
teen inches long, showed a stride
offifty-two inches. Investigators
did not rule out a hoax, but con-
cluded the tracks were probably
from the feet of a living c; :ture.

117
 Roger Patterson's tantalizing film
of a large, hairy creature loping
along a stream bed in northern Cal-
ifornia escalated the Bigfoot con-
troversy. While experts conceded
the 1967 footage contained no
visible signs of a hoax, Patterson
was unable to provide vital techni-
cal information -the speed at
which he had shot the film-that
could have facilitated its analysis

it seemed so human that he could not bring him creatures, presumably Sasquatches.
self even to raise his rifle, much less to fire. As it The family members— a huge, eight-

left, Roe said, the thing tipped its head back and foot-tall male, a seven-foot female, a

emitted "a peculiar noise that seemed to be young male of the same height, and a
half laugh and half language." smaller female — chattered among
Green was enthralled by such accounts themselves in a way that struck their

and soon joined Dahinden in a concerted uncomprehending captive as quite hu-

search for Sasquatch stories and evidence. man. He was not harmed, the lumber-
One of their first team projects was a 1957 man said, not even threatened, but nei-
interview with a retired lumberman, Albert ther was he allowed to leave.

Ostman, who agreed to tell them a fantastic "The hair on their heads was about

story that he claimed to have kept to him- six inches long," Ostman recalled. On the
self for thirty-three years. rest of their bodies it was "short, and thick
During a vacation in 1924, Ostman in places." They had large feet with padded
related, he had decided to do some gold soles and wide hands with fingernails "like

prospecting near Toba Inlet, opposite chisels." Ostman wrote that they were ex-
Vancouver Island, and set up a campsite tremely agile, climbing rock faces with ease,
near a spring. On two successive morn- except for the older female who had "very
ings, he arose to find that his gear had wide hips, and a gooselike walk." The young
been tampered with-most likely, he male of the family was fascinated by the pots
surmised, by a porcupine. He gave the and pans he had retrieved from the prospec-
matter little thought, although he de- tor's sleeping bag; he would also come close
cided to stow his cooking equipment enough to take pinches of snuff from Ostman,
and some other supplies in his which he would then hungrily eat. This "young
sleeping bag for safekeeping. But fellow" had wide jaws and a narrow skull "that
on the third night, said Ostman, he slanted upward round at the back about four or
awoke in panic as he was picked five inches higher than the forehead."
up bodily in his sleeping bag and Ostman said that he remained in the valley
.vay, extremely uncom- with the supposed Sasquatches for six days before
fortable and nearly suffocated he managed to escape. His chance came when he
for a distance thai he guessed to enticed the old male into taking a can of snuff. The
be Bbdlt twenty live mill creature gulped down its entire contents and imme-
When he was set down, diately became ill. In the confusion, Ostman fled,
'
eventually reaching the coast and getting a boat back
to civilization. He kept the incident a secret for so
I
long, he said, because he feared being thought crazy or
a liar. But by the late 1950s, Sasquatch accounts were
lly ot becoming rather common -in no little part because a
few people such as Green and Dahinden were taking
them so seriously— and this encouraged Ostman to come sistance of a local hunter and taxidermist named Bob
forth and to tell his story at last. Titmus, who examined the tracks and declared that they
In 1958, Green raced to the remote Bluff Creek area of were not made by any known animal, Crew made casts of
northern California to check out a report from a bulldozer one set of prints that were two inches deep and sixteen
operator named Jerry Crew. Known to be a devout Baptist inches long. A newspaper in Eureka published the story on
and Crew was working on a new road into a
teetotaler. the front page, and Crew quickly became the subject of in-

17,000-square-mile wilderness area. One morning in Au- ternational attention.

gust, Crew found his bulldozer surrounded by giant, hu- Not long after John Green's arrival at Bluff Creek to

manlike tracks in the mud. Somewhat irritated by what he investigate the story, he too found some tracks. And the
took to be a practical joke, he went about his road-building stories coming in from the woods became more dramatic.
job. But when he found more tracks the next morning, and One logger, Wilbur Wallace, reported following a trail of
the morning after that, Crew asked his fellow workers to Sasquatch tracks down a steep hill from a work site and
take a look. A few of the men had heard tales of giant, two- finding a fifty-five-gallon drum full of diesel oil 175 feet
legged forest creatures. Some of his colleagues even from the road. Judging from the tracks, the creature had
claimed to have seen them in the area. picked up the barrel, carried it to the edge of the road, and
During the following two months, the road builders hurled it over the side. Other equipment, such as a 250-
continued to find the tracks of creatures that had apparently pound truck tire, received the same treatment in ensuing
circled the heavy equipment during the night, then stalked days. Tracks were seen throughout the region, and a num-
away into the surrounding ravines and gorges. With the as- ber of people— including such presumably reliable witness-

In the most captivating frame of Roger Patterson's 1967

film, shot at a distance of about 130 feet, the purported Bigfoot briefly
turns toward the camera. Researchers estimate the
creature was just over six feet tall and weighed about 280 pounds.

^
119
 Tracks discovered in 1969 near Bossburg, Washington, were un-
usual not only for their large size but because the right foot (below)
was misshapen. Experts analyzing plaster casts (opposite) of
the tracks agreed that such a deformity would be difficult to fake.

es as an expert hunter and remote, thicketed marshes

two doctors-claimed to have along the Mississippi.

caught glimpses of huge, Then in the 1970s, a

hairy, bipedal creatures along new— and, according to most

back roads. When a reporter cryptozoologists, utterly pre-

asked some Huppa Indians posterous—explanation of

what the creatures might be, the origins of such creatures

one old man said, "Good began to emerge. In 1973, a

Lord, have the white men fi- sudden spate of Sasquatch

nally gotten around to that?" sightings occurred in West-

It seemed clear that no moreland County, Pennsylva-

ordinary man or known ani- nia, among other places in
mal had made the tracks, the East and Midwest. On
with their walking stride of September 27, for example, at

four feet and running stride of about 9:30 p.m., two young
ten. Nor could any machine girls awaiting a ride spotted a
have negotiated the steep huge, hairy creature standing
slopes they often ascended or in the woods. The terrified

descended. Perhaps the sight- girls ran home and described

ings, and the tracks as well, were hoaxes, yet there was no a white, eight-foot-tall monster with glowing red eyes that
reason to suspect such a thing carried a luminous ball or sphere in one hand. Several peo-
In the years that followed, the reports kept emanating ple later reported that they had seen, that same night, what
from the Northwest. Like the Bluff Creek story, they re- appeared to be a stationary aircraft hovering over the
mained inconclusive and unconfirmed by substantial evi- woods in the area, beaming a light down to the ground. The
dence Now and then, there would be an expedition; mil- apparent connection between a rash of Sasquatch encoun-
lionaire businessman Tom Slick, whose Yeti searches in the ters and an outbreak of UFO sightings in the area led some
Himalayas had proved fruitless, organized one that was cut to propose that Sasquatch was an extraterrestrial.
short by Mis death in a plane crash. For the most part, how- The idea seemed to gain support only a month later,

•
mounters with the Sasquatch continued to be fleet- near Greensburg, Pennsylvania, when a dozen people re-
ing and individual affairs ported seeing a large, red UFO descending into a distant
Another one of them occurred at Bluff Creek, nine pasture. One young man (who used the pseudonym Ste-
\ made his plaster casts there. The result of phen for his subsequent accounts of the episode) grabbed a
the latei iru Ident was another set of casts-and Roger Pat- rifle and drove off to investigate, along with two ten-year-
imous tvv i| film Meanwhile, hairy old twin brothers. As they approached the pasture, the
ning and even headlights of their car dimmed. They stopped and continued
•hio, Mich- on foot until they crested a hill and saw a bright, dome-
w«_. i foul shaped craft about a hundred feet in diameter hovering just
•
, alle '

the irking above the ground. They heard a low, humming noise and,
'
tht from somewhere nearby, the sound of screaming.
M
 At that point, one of the scene later that night found
twins called out in fear, hav- no sign of monsters or a land-
ing spotted something in the ing, but did encounter an un-
glow of the huge vehicle's pleasant, sulfurous smell per-
light Two apelike creatures, meating the area. A number
standing seven to eight feet of investigators had difficulty
tall, were lumbering toward breathing and became dizzy.
them across the pasture They Stephen's reaction was even
had gray fur and glowing, more pronounced; he began
green eyes Twice Stephen to growl and flail his arms,
(bed over their heads, trying shaking violently, at one
to s t ire
,
them nit, but they point racing off around the
>mmg. One of the twins he collapsed.
——
field until

fl In terror, while Ste- ^ Such reported sightings of

phen fired three rounds Into the largest of the two crea- Sasquatch-like creatures and UFOs at the same time are rel-

;
and raised rw it moment, atively rare, though persistent, particularly in the Midwest.
ibbleltke vi app*. •
monsters It is no surprise that they have led to the formulation of
some bizarre theories. One of these is that UFOs are the
I the products of electromagnetic energy released by geological
 In March I 986, while peering
across this barren landscape
beyond an avalanche of snow
that had swept over a Himala-
yan trail only moments before
he arrived, Anthony Wooldridge
spotted what he took to be
the erect figure of a Yea' (inset).
But Wooldridge later concluded
that the supposed Yeti was
probably a rock.

stress deep in the earth; vinced him, he declared, that "some of the tracks are real,"
this energy, playing on the and that "Sasquatch exists."
brain, creates images of While Napier was sympathetic to the claims for the
UFOs, and by the same Yeti, his scientific caution barred him from taking them at
process could produce face value. The effects of melting snow on footprints, the
Sasquatch hallucinations. relative vagueness of sighting reports, and the Sherpa belief
A less-benign variant in the dual nature of reality led Napier, like Edmund Hillary,

of that scenario has been to dismiss the Yeti "as a red herring, or, at least as a red
offered by a magician and bear." A single piece of evidence -Shipton's clear if enig-
UFO writer named John matic footprint from the 1950s -continued to bother Napier,
Keel. He has suggested but he insisted nevertheless that the Yeti still remained to
that the creatures reported be shown as real.

in the vicinity of landed Thirteen years after his book appeared, Napier saw
UFOs materialize by draw- what seemed to be convincing proof that the Yeti did indeed
ing energy from the wit- exist. The new and tantalizing evidence came from an En-
ness, in a kind of bloodless glishman named Anthony B. Wooldridge. Early one morn-
vampirism, emerging into ing in March 1986, Wooldridge was in the Himalayas of
our world fleetingly from northern India, close to the Nepalese border. At about
some other dimension. Ac- 1 1,000 feet, he came across "strange tracks" in the snow,
cording to Keel, this phe- measuring some ten inches long. Wooldridge pressed on
nomenon could explain the continuing elusiveness of Sas- until, about 2,000 feet higher, he found that his progress up
quatch, the chief physical evidence of which consists of the incline was blocked by the remains of an avalanche of
some 1 ,500 tracks leading nowhere. wet snow. Moving closer to the impassable snow pile, he
Such theorizing may be dismissed easily enough, but discovered additional tracks on the other side, leading
the existence of so many tracks was evidence enough to across a slope to a small bush. Behind the bush, steady and
lead at least one well-known member of the scientific es- motionless, was what appeared to be an erect creature
tablishment to proclaim the reality of Sasquatch. John Na- standing six or more feet tall.

pier, a British anatomist and anthropologist who had served "The head was large and squarish," Wooldridge re-

as the Smithsonian Institution's director of primate biology ported later, "and the whole body seemed to be covered
in the 1 960s and was later a professor at the University of with dark hair." He was able to get to within about 500 feet
London, made a thorough study of the evidence for such of the presumed creature, which remained unmoving by the
creatures. In 1973 he published his findings in Bigfoot: The bush, and photographed it with his Nikon camera. Then, af-

Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality. ter observing the startlingly humanlike figure for some
To Napier, the evidence for Sasquatch was all but forty-five minutes, Wooldridge noted that the weather was
overwhelming. "No one doubts that some of the footprints closing in and descended from the mountainside.
are hoaxes and that some eyewitnesses are lying," he con- In showed his photographs to a number
England, he
ceded, "but if one track and one report is true-bill, then of scientists,amor^ -hem zoologist Desmond Morris, a
myth must be chucked out the window and reality admitted skeptic when it came to Yetis. Morris found the pictures

through the front doors." The weight of the evidence con- "puzzling." Napier was less restrained. "In my view," he

123
wrote, "the creature in the Supposed tracks ofBigfoot have often been dismissed as saddlebag. Patterson, howev-
largehuman prints, bear tracks, or hoaxes. But a comparison er, could not say for sure.
photograph is a hominid. . . .

ofBigfoot tracks with human and bear prints, shown above

The creature cannot be any- in comparative scale, suggests clear differences. Later, Russian analysts

thing but a Yeti." in Moscow found a novel

The Wooldridge photographs are indeed convincing, method of estimating the film speed. As Patterson had
appearing to show a humanlike figure standing at apparent dashed toward the creature with his camera whirring, the
ease beside a mountainside bush (pages 122-123). But such film recorded how he had bobbed up and down with each
pictures are not always what they seem. In late 1987, not step, thus recording the rate of his stride. The Russians cal-

long after John Napier died of a stroke, Wooldridge an- culated that if the film had been shot at 24 fps, then Patter-
nounced forthrightly that painstaking analysis of his Hima- son had been taking six steps per second— a faster pace by
layan photographs, and comparisons with pictures taken far than that of a world-class sprinter. According to the Rus-
later of the same scene, had shown that "the object photo- sians, the film had to have been shot at 1 6 fps; according to
graphed was almost certainly a rock." Grieve, that would rule out a hoax.

Although Wooldridge's photographs yielded up their Patterson died in 1972, but others continued to wran-
mystery relatively quickly, the same cannot be said of Roger gle over his film. Rene Dahinden took it to some of the lead-
Patterson's enigmatic 1967 movie film of the female Sas- ing practitioners of cinematic deception in the world— the
quatch he supposedly encountered in the Pacific Northwest. technicians at the Walt Disney studios. If the Sasquatch film
The Patterson film has remained a focal point of the Sas- was a hoax, said the cinematographers, it was a better hoax
quatch debate. If the film was a hoax, some investigators then even they could have created. Neither the Disney peo-
think, then Sasquatch need not be taken seriously, but if it ple nor any other analyst of the film has been able to find
was legitimate, then Sasquatch exists. conclusive evidence of fraud— what movie people would re-
was suspicious of the Patterson footage, find- fer to as "the zipper in the suit."
Napier
ing the alleged Sasquatch's gait and general ap- Further perspective on the famous film footage has
pearance somewhat unnatural. Another analyst, a come from Grover Krantz, a physical anthropologist at
British expert in biomechanics named Donald W. Washington State University. Krantz calculated that a crea-
Grieve, concluded that if the film had been shot at ture of the Sasquatch's size and weight would require a foot
the Standard speed of 24 frames per second (fps), the crea- quite different from a human's. It would have to be more
tine it showed might actually have been a human in dis- flexible, he said, and the heel would have to extend farther
However, continued Grieve, the "possibility of fakery back from the ankle. The Patterson film clearly shows the
is ruled out it the speed ot the film was 1 6 or 18 fps. In these creature's projecting heel -an esoteric biomechanical detail
conditions ,i normal human being could not duplicate the that no former rodeo rider bent on a hoax could have been
"
pattern expected to know.
t'.iti :t turned out w.is uncertain about the Krantz, whose pursuit of the elusive Sasquatch began
Ordinarily, he kept it at 24 fps, in 1969, has studied many of the more than a thousand re-

i >n But he ports of sightings and has interviewed dozens of eyewit-

i< I it< h that the nesses. About half of them, he thinks, were "lying, were
th< i
been ac I by something else, saw something out of a whiskey
! ' hoi ii k in hot He or gave me information too poor to evaluate. With
h 'he other half, I couldn't find anything wrong." Krantz has
 Anthropologist Grover Krantz
compares a seventeen-inch
plaster cast of an alleged
Bigfoot track with his own
twelve-inch shoe. From the
cast, Krantz was able to posit a
bone structuredifferent from
that of humans— a structure, he
believes, that could accommo-
date a beast ofBigfoot's size.

125
also been impressed by more tangible evidence, such as plained; there are few fossils of any kind to be found in the

that turned up in the spring ofl982 by Paul Freeman, a tem- highly acidic soils of the Pacific Northwest.

porary employee of the U.S. National Forest Service. For all that, there might have been a Sasquatch body
On the morning of June 1 0, while tracking a small herd to examine by now, were it not for the curious ethical prob-

of elk along an old logging road near Walla Walla, Washing- lem the creature poses. Several people who have reported

ton, Freeman spotted what he described as a Sasquatch- seeing a Sasquatch have said they were tempted to shoot it,

like figure descending an embankment about sixty yards but could not, because it seemed so human. In fact, Sas-
ahead of him. The creature seemed to notice the human quatch is specifically protected by county ordinances in

intruder and soon fled, but when Freeman and a party of some jurisdictions.

fellow workers returned to investigate further, they discov- Krantz, however, maintains that while the creature is

ered twenty-one well-defined footprints in the hard earth. surely a hominid, it is clearly not human -it lacks tools,
The men made plaster casts of some of the tracks; six days clothes, fire, and language, as far as anyone can tell. For the
later, while patrolling in the same general area, they found sake of science, he argues, at least one of the beasts will

and made casts of another set of prints. have to be shot and brought in by the next searcher or hunt-
After examining the casts from both locations, Krantz er who happens to get the opportunity. However, despite
determined that the tracks had been left by two individual the knowledge and understanding that would spring from
creatures, each with feet about fifteen inches long. More in- such a find, the prospect raises daunting questions. Would
triguing, he found that the casts showed signs of dermal the elusive Sasquatch be declared an endangered species?
ridges-swirls of lines similar to fingerprints-and even Would its forest habitat be protected? Would captured spec-
sweat glands. According to Krantz, such minute detail imens be exhibited in zoos?
could not be faked, a conclusion supported by several fo- So far, such questions remain moot for all but a dedi-
rensic and dermatological experts who studied the casts. cated minority of travelers, adventurers, and scientists
number of other supposed Sasquatch tracks have around the world. For them, the stories of what a privileged
been found in the Walla Walla area since 1982, few have reportedly seen and heard and smelled, as well as

A
ality,

the North
most
leading Krantz to maintain that there are as
as six of the creatures ranging through the region.
But if Krantz has no doubts about Sasquatch's re-
scientists remain skeptical. Indeed, 88 percent of
American university anthropology professors
many the physical evidence recorded
plaster casts,

of us who
carefully observed
is enough. In all probability,

venture into remote regions of the world are

and for the

hominoid species-nocturnal, omnivorous, bipedal, and

on scraps of
they

most part avoided by a

film

insist,
and
those

large
in

polled in a late 1970s survey would not even concede the erect, rather like ourselves.
blllty that such .i { reature might exist. To these individuals, the planet earth remains a large
Photography Is not conclusive, the scientists insist. place, retaining its mysteries and capable of surprises-in
rttere must be physh al evidence a carcass, a skull, or at spite of all the efforts of civilized humans to put distance
indftj] ol teeth No one has suggested that Sas- between themselves and their natural origins in the wild.

tons have There is room for giants, they say, not only in the universal
'

i
>ne rarely myths of the monsters that came before us, but in the thick-

il li .iuse ets of Oregon and the high forests of the Himalayas. If they
lv by have yet to prove their case, it is also true that they have yet
x to be proven wrong.
 Monsters affhe Mafince

H lellllllllp meeeeeeeee!" This

plaintively futile cry, uttered as the spider bears down on the tiny
man-bug at the climax of the movie The Fly, is just one in a gallery
of terrifying moments have thrilled generations of film audi-
that
ences. From Frankenstein to Alien, movie monsters have clomped,
slithered, and oozed across theater screens. These creatures, like
the fanciful beasts of early myth, are often expressions of contem-
porary fears and uncertainties. Nuclear radiation, genetic engi-
neering, and industrial pollution have all spawned their share of
cinematic horrors, ranging from giant ants to humanoid plants and
outsize bears (pages 128-137).
Although the monsters themselves come in all shapes and siz-
es, certain dramatic conventions seem to govern most movies in
which their stories unfold. Often, for instance, misguided or de-
ranged scientists are responsible for the monstrosity, and it is a
safe bet that they will fall prey to the beast by the final reel. Benign
scientists, on the other hand, sometimes have attractive and
brainy daughters who are rescued by— and fall in love with— the
handsome, square-jawed hero who contrives to triumph over the
threatening creature.
But the audience can rarely assume that such couples will live
happily ever after. Experience has shown that movie monsters are

notoriously hard to kill. Usually, they are not dead at all; they are
merely lurking at bay, healing their wounds, plotting their revenge,
and waiting for a sequel.

127
Atomic Ante

In the pioneering film Them!

radiation from an atomic bomb
creates a swarming horde of
gigantic killer ants in the New
Mexico desert. The FBI teams up
with two leading entomologists
and manages to destroy the
creatures before they can infest
the storm drains of Los Angeles.

MHMBM-lWKMIttSS -*«;
A Monster from (he Past

Atomic weaponry wreaks

unexpected havoc in The Beast
from 20,000 Fathoms when a test
explosion in the Arctic revives a
slumbering prehistoric "rhedo-
saurus." Devouring policeman
and paleontologist alike, sowing
panic in its path, the creature
threatens to level New York
I
City, where skyscrapers rise
from the site of its ancient
breeding ground.

if

*$&#
1
 *-Jg&

!
*^c.
v v
7
1

*
 w?

A Human Fly

An experiment in matter trans-

ference goes dreadfully
wrong The Fly as scientist
in
Andre Delambre suddenly finds
himself with the head and
forelimb of the title insect. As his
wife frantically searches for
a way to reverse the process, the
hapless Andre begins to realize
mind as well as his body
that his
has been affected by the hid-
eous "scrambling of atoms."
 SH
WOUL0
SCREAM
FOR
THE
REST
OF
I HER
LIFE!

"•OnemaScopE
TERROR-COLOR by OE LUXE

«
mt mm
The Plant People

Believing that the survival of tures in The Mutations. The

civilization depends on success- scientist meets a gruesome end
fully crossbreeding human be- when his daughter's fiance,
ings with plant life, a deranged furious at having been trans-
scientist engineers a series of formed into a human Venus's-
increasingly bizarre hybrid crea- flytrap, hungers for revenge.
Nidations in Maine

Reports of environmental hazards

produced by a lumber mill bring
investigator Robert Vern to the
backwoods of Maine, where he
encounters a number of fearsome
mutations-including oversize
fish and a rampaging bearlike

beast. Vern manages to triumph

over the killer animals-tempo-
rarily, at least -but Prophecy
leaves unresolved the nightmar-
ish issues of industrial pollution.

V*
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The index was prepared by Ha^el Blumberg-McKee. The Harmsworth, Loch Ness Centre, Drumnadrochit, Scotland; stock, New York; Dr. Roy P Mackal, Chicago, Illinois; Dr
editors wish to thank these individuals and institutions for Bernard Heuvelmans, Centre de Cryptozoologie, Le Ve- Clyde Roper, National Museum of Natural History, Smithso-
their valuable assistance in the preparation of this volume Hough, CIGNA Museum and Art Col-
sinet, France, Melissa nian Institution, Washington, DC; Dottie Schneider. Phila-
Rene Dahinden, Richmond. British Columbia, Anthony G lection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Fridolf Johnson, Wood- delphia, Pennsylvania.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adamnan, Ninth Abbot of Columba Ed by
Hy, Life of Saint Monster Hunt Washington, DC: Acropolis Books. 1972. Huyghe, Patrick, "The Search for Bigfoot "'
Science Digest.
William Reeves Edinburgh Edmonston and Douglas. Project Water Horse: The True Story of the Monster Quest September 1984.
1874 at Loch Ness London Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. International Society of Cryptozoology, The ISC Newsletter
"
'Are There Sea Serpents, Really'" New York Herald- Ellis, William S "Loch Ness; The Lake and the Legend
, Ed by J Richard Greenwell:
Tnbune. August 14, 1955 National Geographic, June 1977. "Champ Passes New York Assembly ." Spring 1983.
Aylesworth, Science Looks at Mysterious Mon-
Thomas G ,
Geist, William E "Village on Lake Champlain Seeking Its
, "Champ Photo Analysis Supports Animal Hypothesis
sters New
York Julian Messner. 1982. Fortune in Tale of a Fabulous Sea Monster ." New York Autumn 1982
Bauer. Henry H The Enigma of Loch Ness Urbana, III Uni-
,
Times, November 29. 1980. Chesapeake Bay Monster Filmed on Videotape Sum-
versity of Illinois Press. 1986 Gould, R T mer 1982
Baumann. El wood D The Loch Ness Monster New York
. The Case for the Sea-Serpent Detroit Singing Tree Press, "Close Encounter in Lake Okanagan Revealed ."
Spring
Franklin Watts, 1972 1969 (reprint of 1930 edition) 1987.
Bayanov, Dmitri, "A Field Investigation into the Relict The Loch Ness Monster and Others London Geoffrey "Congo Expeditions Inconclusive ." Spring 1982
Hominoid Situation in Tajikistan. U S.S.R." Cryptozool- Bles, 1934 "CSICOP Publishes Further Nessie Criticisms Summer "'

ogy. Vol 3, 1984 Green, John: 1985

Bendick, Jeanne, The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster On the Track of the Sasquatch. Agassiz. B.C., Canada "Giant Octopus Blamed for Deep Sea Fishing Disrup-
New York McGraw-Hill, 1976 Cheam Publishing, 1968. tions ." Autumn 1985
"
Binns, Ronald. The Loch Ness Mystery Solved Buffalo Pro- Sasquatch The Apes among Us Seattle Hancock House, "Interview with Paul H LeBlond and Forrest G Wood
metheus Books. 1984 1978 Spring 1983.
"
Bishiip. Barry C 'Wintering in the High Himalayas " Na-
, The Sasquatch File Agassiz, B.C., Canada Cheam Pub- "Lake Champlain Monster Draws Worldwide Attention
tional Geographic. October 1962 lishing, 1973 Summer 1982
Boffey, Philip M " Chessie' Back in the Swim Again "
, Year of the Sasquatch Agassiz, B.C., Canada Cheam "Lake Champlain Update 1983 " Spring 1984
New York Times. September 4. 1984 Publishing, 1970 "Lloyds of London to Insure Ogopogo " Spring 1984
Bonington. Chris. Annapurna South Face New York Gregory, William K , "The Loch Ness 'Monster" Natural "Mokele-Mbembe New Searches, New Claims " Au-
McGraw-Hill. 1971 History, April 1980 tumn 1986.
Bord. Janet,and Colin Bord Crumley, Michael. There Are Giants in the Earth Garden "Proposed Sasquatch Hunt Stirs New Controversies
The Bigfoot Casebook Hamsburg, Pa Stackpole Books, City, N Y Doubleday, 1974 Summer 1984
"
Haining, Peter, Ancient Mystenes New York Taplinger Pub- "Retouching of Nessie Flipper Photo Claimed -Denied
Thr I n./rn. r i,t Btgfool and Other Man Beasts Ed by Hil- lishing, 1977 Winter 1984
ary Evans Wellingborough. Northamptonshire, England Halpin, Marjone M and Michael M Ames, eds Manlike
, ,
" Sea Serpents" Seen off California Coast Winter 1983
Aquarian Press. 1984 Monsters on Trial Early Records and Modern Evidence "Walla Walla Casts Show Dermal Ridges " Autumn
Hnght Mkh.irl Meet Mokele-Mbembe " BBC Wildlife. Vancouver, BC Canada University of British Columbia
, 1982
•mher 1984 Press. 1980 Izzard, Ralph, The Abominable Snowman Garden City.
Bymr I nig Foot New York Pocket Harper, Jennifer, "Keeping the Monster Watch " Washing- NY Doubleday. 1955
ton Times Magazine, July 17, 1986 Joyner. Graham C "The Orang-utan in England An Expla-
.

II Hi/.ihcth Montgomery, and David Solomon, Heaney. Michael, "The Mongolian Almas A Historical Re- nation for the Use of Yahoo as a Name for the Australian
•
walker and Company, evaluation of the Sighting by Baradiin " Cryptozoology. Hairy Man " Cryptozoology. Vol 3. 1984
Vol 2, 1983 Krantz, Grover S "Anatomy and Dermatoglyphics of
,

Helm, Thomas, Monsters of the Deep New York Dodd, Three Sasquatch Footprints " Cryptozoology. Vol 2.
Well liianan Mead. 1966 1983
Helton, David, "The Creature from the Avalanche " BBC LeBlond, Paul H and Michael J Collins. "The Wilson Nes-
.

Wildlife. September 1986 sie Photo A Size Determination Based on Physical Prin-
The Encyclopedia of i :
Mead. Heuvelmans. Bernard ciples " Cryptozoology. Vol 6, 1987
In the WOke of trie Sea Serpents Transl by Richard Gar- LeBlond. Paul H and John Sibert. Observations of Large
.

Mead. net! New York Hill and Wang. 1965 Unidentified Marine Animals in British Columbia and Ad-
On the Track of Unknown Animals Transl by Richard lacent Waters " Manuscript report no 28 for the Institute
Garnett New York Hill and Wang. 1958 of Oceanography, University of British Columbia. Van-
Hewkln, lames A Investigating Sasquatch Evidence in couver. Canada
in Northwest y vol 5, 1986 Ley. Willy £\, wYork Viking Press. 1959
dmui
i
u --mond Doig, High in the Thin '
Loch Ness SomethingThere' Science News. April 1 7. 1976
Garden City NY Doubleday. 1962 Lohr. Steve. "Myth or Fact, Nessie Is Still Lunng Many
'i Ness A Practical In New YOrk Times. October II. 1988
Mature and n. Monsters New Lum. Peter. Fabulous Beasts London Thames and Hudson.
•i i 1952
match Toronto McCosker, lohn E Sandy, the Great While Shark
,
An/
in : i
mal Kingdom. December 1980/January 1981

138
 McEwan, Graham J.: Evidence for Wildman in Hubei Province, People's Re- Sprague, Roderick, and Grover S Krantz, eds The Scientist ,

Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland London Robert public of China." Cryptozoology. Vol. 2, 1983. Looks at the Sasquatch ll Vol. 4 of Anthropological Mono-
Hale, 1986. Razdan, Rikki, and Alan Kielar, "Sonar and Photographic graphs of the University of Idaho. Moscow, Idaho: Univer-
Sea Serpents, Sailors and Sceptics London Routledge & Searches for the Loch Ness Monster: A Reassessment." sity Press of Idaho, 1979.
Kegan Paul. 1978 The Skeptical Inquirer, winter 1984-85 Sullivan, Walter, "Loch Ness Monster: A Serious View."
Mackal, Roy P.: "The (Retouched) Loch Ness Monster." Discover, Septem- New York Times, April 8, 1976.
A Living Dinosaur* In Search of Mokele-Mbembe Leiden, ber 1984 Sweeney, James B.:
The Netherlands E.J Brill, 1987 Rines, Robert H., Harold E. Edgerton, and Robert Needle- A Pictorial History of Sea Monsters and Other Dangerous
The Monsters of Loch Ness Chicago Swallow Press. man, "Activities of the Academy of Applied Science Re- Marine Life. New York: Crown Publishers, 1972.
1980. lated to Investigations at Loch Ness, 1984." Cryptozool- Sea Monsters: A Collection of Eyewitness Accounts New
"Nessie's African Cousin " Animal Kingdom, December ogy, Vol.3, 1984 York: David McKay, 1977
"
1980/January 1981. Roper, Clyde F E and Kenneth J Boss, "The Giant Squid
, Tchernine, Odette, In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman.
"The Search for Evidence of Mokele-Mbembe in the Peo- American, April 1982.
Scientific New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1971.
ple's Republic of the Congo ." Cryptozoology. Vol 1, 1982 Saar, John, "Salt-Water Nessie or Plesiosaurus, It's Back in Vachon, Brian, "Is There a Champlain Monster?" Reader's
Searching for Hidden Animals Garden City, NY Double- the Briny." Washington Post, July 21, 1977. Digest, April 1978.
day, 1980. Sanderson, Ivan T., Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Waddell, L. A., Among the Himalayas. Ed. by H. K. Kuloy.
Markotic, Vladimir, edThe Sasquatch and Other Unknown
, Life. Philadelphia Chilton, 1967. Kathmandu, Nepal: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1978 (reprint
Hommoids. Seattle Hancock House, 1978 "Search for Loch Ness Monster Comes Up Empty " Associ- of 1900 edition).
Meredith, Dennis L Search at Loch Ness: The Expedition of
, ated Press, October 12, 1987. Wasson, Barbara, Sasquatch Apparitions Bend, Oreg.: pri-
the New York Times and the Academy of Applied Science Searle, Frank, Nessie: Seven Years in Search of the Monster. vately published, 1979.
New York: The New York Times Book Co Quadrangle, ,
London Coronet Books, 1976. Whyte, Constance, More Than a Legend: The Story of the
1977 Semple, Robert B Jr "Loch Ness Expedition, Switching
, , Loch Ness Monster. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1957.
Moon, Mary, Ogopogo The Okanagan Mystery. Vancouver, Tactics, to Try Sonar Gear to Find Monster." New York Wiley, JohnP., Jr., "Cameras, Sonar Close In on Denizen of
B.C., Canada J J Douglas, 1977. Times, July 13, 1976 Loch Ness." Smithsonian, June 1976.
Napier, John, Bigfoot The Yea and Sasquatch in Myth and Shackley, Myra, Still Living' New York: Thames and Hud- Wilford, John Noble:
Reality. New York E P Dutton, 1973 son, 1983. "Is It Lake Champlain's Monster?" New York Times, June
Owen, Elizabeth, "in Search of a Monster " Life, August Shine, Adrian: 29, 1981
1982. "Sounding Out the Sightings." The Unexplained (Lon- "Scientists Plan All-Out Loch Ness Search." New York
Patterson, Roger, Do Abominable Snowmen of Amenca don), Vol 1, Issue 12. Times, May 28, 1976.
Really Exist* Yakima, Wash Franklin Press, 1966 "To Catch a Monster." The Unexplained (London), Vol. 2, "Seekers of Loch Ness Monster Disappointed, Not Dis-
Phillpotts, Beatrice, Mermaids. New York Ballantine Issue 14. couraged " New York Times, December 6, 1976.
Books, 1980. "A Very Strange Fish'" The Unexplained (London), Vol. Zarzynski, Joseph W., Champ-Beyond the Legend. Port
Poirier, Frank E , Hu Hongxing, and Chung-Min Chen, "The 2, Issue 13. Henry, NY.: Bannister Publications, 1984.

PICTURE CREDITS
Credits for the illustrations from left to right are separated by ed London News Picture Library, London. 35, 36: Fortean son, Arizona. 63: Sandra Mansi/Gamma-Liaison. 64, 65:
semicolons, from top to bottom by dashes. Picture Library, Wales. 38: Courtesy International Society of David Doubilet. 67: Map by Fred Holz based on map sup-
Cryptozoology, Tucson, Arizona 39: Art by Fred Holz. 40, plied by John Bartholemew and Son Ltd., Edinburgh. 68, 69:
Cover: Art by Alfred T Kamajian 7 Art by Bryan Leister, 41 Fortean Picture Library, Wales- AP/Wide World Pho- Popperfoto, London; Hugh Gray/Fortean Picture Library,
detail from page 15 8-15: Art by Bryan Leister. 16, 17: Art tos. 42: Fortean Picture Library, Wales. 43: AP/Wide World Wales- Fortean Picture Library, Wales. 70: Ralph Izzard,
by Wendy Popp 18 Woodcut in Mostri, Draghi e Serpenti. Photos 45: Art by Lloyd K. Townsend, detail from page 50 Tunbridge Wells, Kent, from The Hunt for the Bum, Hodder
. . . edited by Erminio Caprotti, pub-
di Ulisse Aldrovandi, 46-51: Art by Lloyd K Townsend 52, 53: Anadolu Medeni- and Stoughton, London, 1951. 72, 73: Terry Fincher/Photo-
lished by Nuove Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, Milan -Mary yetleri Miizesi, Ankara 54: Lee Boltin, courtesy Fridolf graphers International, Guildford, Surrey. 74, 75: H. L.
Evans Picture Library, London -woodcut in Mostri, Draghi e Johnson, Woodstock, New York-woodcuts in Mostri, Cockrell/Camera Press, London; ITN, London/Tim Dins-
Serpenti: ... di Ulisse Aldrovandi, edited by Erminio Ca- Draghi e Serpenti: di Ulisse Aldrovandi. edited by Erminio
. dale; photograph by F. C Adams, Daily Mail, London/Solo
protti, published by Nuove Edizioni Gabnele Mazzotta, Mi- Caprotti, published by Nuove Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, Syndication -R. K. Wilson/Fortean Picture Library, Wales-
lan—Mary Evans Picture Library, London. 19: Woodcuts in Milan (3) 55: Painting by John Archibald Woodside, Sr., Lachlan Stewart/London Express News and Feature Ser-
Mostn, Draghi e Serpenti: di Ulisse Aldrovandi, edited by
. . . courtesy CIGNA Museum and Art Collection, Philadelphia. vice, from More Than a Legend: The Story of the Loch Ness
Erminio Caprotti. published by Nuove Edizioni Gabriele 56 Michael Holford, Loughton/courtesy the Trustees of the Monster, by Constance Whyte, Hamish Hamilton, London,
Mazzotta, Milan, except bottom right, Mary Evans Picture British Museum, London; courtesy the Trustees of the Brit- 1957, P. A MacNab, courtesy Time Inc Picture Collection.
Library, London 20, 21: David Doubilet; Wu Zuzheng/ ish Museum, London. 57: From Great Mysteries: Mysterious 76: Ivor Newby/National Archive, Loch Ness Centre, Drum-
Photo Researchers, Inc.; c George Holton/Photo Research- Monsters, by Daniel Farson and Angus Hall, c Aldus Books, nadrochit 77: Courtesy Time Inc. Picture Collection. 78: c

ers, Inc., 1971; Peter Davey/Bruce Coleman Inc.- 5 George London, 1975; woodcut in Mostri, Draghi e Serpenti: di . . . Academy of Applied Science, 1972, courtesy R. H. Rines.
Holton/Photo Researchers, Inc., 1978 — c Tom McHugh/ Ulisse Aldrovandi, edited by Erminio Caprotti, published by 79: c Academy of Applied Science, 1972. 80: Nicholas Witch-
Photo Researchers, Inc., 1979. 23: Kohei Shinonoi/Uni- Nuove Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, Milan; Bibliotheque Na- ell/Fortean Picture Library. Wales- C Academy of Applied
photo Press International Inc. 24 Fortean Picture Library, tionale, Paris-The Bodleian Library, Oxford. 58, 59: Mary Science, 1975 81: c Academy of Applied Science,
Wales 25: Courtesy Dr Clyde Roper 26 Forbes Collection, Evans Picture Library, London, Nikos Kontos, Athens, cour- 1975/Syndication International, London 82, 83: Courtship
Hart Nautical Collections, MIT Museum. 27: Boston Athe- tesy Delphi Museum; Lee Boltin -Eckhard Ritter from Aka- in Loch Ness, painting by Peter Scott, C.H., C.B.E DSC, ,

naeum 29: Fortean Picture Library, Wales 30: The Kendall demische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, Graz; Giraudon, Paris, F.R S., courtesy Christopher James, Isle of Mull, Scotland.
Whaling Museum, Sharon, Massachusetts 31: Culver Pic- courtesy Musee de Louvre, Paris 61: Art by Wendy Popp 86, 87: David Doubilet 88: Nicholas Witchell/Fortean Pic-
tures. 32: Mary Evans Picture Library, London 33: Illustrat- 62: Courtesy International Society of Cryptozoology, Tuc- ture Library, Wales-Today/RDR Productions. 89: To-

139
day/RDR Productions 91 Drawing by David Miller from A Eric Shipton, courtesy the Royal Geographical Society Pic- photomontage: Background, USAF Photographic Collec-
Uving Dinosaur' In Search ofMokele-Mbembe, by Dr Roy P ture Collection, London 104 Daily Mail, London/Solo Syn- tion, National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institu-

Mackal. c by E) Brill. Leiden, The Netherlands, 1987, detail dication 105 UPl/Betlmann Newsphotos 106: Myra tion. Poster c Warner Bros. Inc., 1954, 1982, all rights re-

from page 97 92. 93 Mane T Womack from A Living Dino- Shackley. Bradford 108. 109 Drawing by Lt. Col. V. S. Ka- served, photograph courtesy Crowell Beech; movie still c
saur' In Search of Mokele-Mbembe. by Dr Roy P Mackal,
c rapetian/Forlean Picture Library, Wales; from Year of the Warner Bros Inc., 1954, 1982, all rights reserved. 130. 131
by EJ Bnll. Leiden, The Netherlands, 1987, map by Wil- Sasquatch, byjohn Green, c Cheam Publishing Ltd Saanich- , photomontage Background, USAF Photographic Collec-
liam L Hezlep 94, 95 Background photograph by Dr Roy lon, British Columbia, Canada, 1970 111: Dr. Bernard Heu- tion, National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institu-

P Mackal. from A Living Dinosaur' In Search of Mokele- velmans; courtesy International Society of Cryptozoology, tion. Poster c Warner Bros. Inc., 1953, 1981. all rights re-

Mbembe. by Dr Roy P Mackal. c by E

J Bnll, Leiden, The Tucson, Arizona 112 Courtesy International Society of served, photograph courtesy Kobal Collection. New York;
Netherlands. 1987 photographs by Justin Wilkinson
Inset Cryptozoology, Tucson, Arizona 113 Dr Zhou Guoxing/ movie still c Warner Bros. Inc., 1953, 1981, all rights re-
from A Living Dinosaur' In Search of Mokele-Mbembe. by Dr Fortean Picture Library, Wales 114: From Sasquatch: The served, photograph courtesy Movie Star News, New York
Roy P Mackal. c by E J Brill. Leiden, The Netherlands, Apes among Us. by John Green, c Cheam Publishing Ltd ,
132, 133 photomontage: Background, Fritz Goro for LIFE
1987. Dr Roy P Mackal from A Living Dinosaur' In Search Saanichton, Bntish Columbia, Canada, 1978; drawing by Movie still from the Twentieth Century Fox Release THE
c
of Mokele-Mbembe, by Dr Roy P Mackal, by EJ. Brill, Lei- Robert Lea/Fortean Picture Library, Wales -Fortean Pic- FLY c 1958 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, all
den, The Netherlands, 1987 -Mane T Womack from A Liv- ture Library, Wales, drawing by Jack Cochran/Fortean Pic- rights reserved, photograph courtesy Spnnger/Bettmann
ing Dinosaur' In Search of Mokele-Mbembe, by Dr Roy P ture Library, Wales 115: c James A Sugar/Black Star, Film Archives, New York; poster from the Twentieth Centu-
Mackal. • by E) Bnll, Leiden. The Netherlands, 1987 96. 1981 116: c Rene Dahinden, Richmond, British Columbia, ry Fox Release THE FLY c 1958 Twentieth Century-Fox Film
97 Background photograph by Richard Greenwell, from A Canada, 1957 117: Rene Dahinden/Fortean Picture Li- Corporation, all rights reserved 134, 135 photomontage
c Rene Dahinden,
Living Dinosaur' In Search of Mokele-Mbembe. by Dr Roy P brary, Wales. 118, 119 Patterson/Gimlin Background, Fritz Goro Poster and movie still c 1974 Getty
Mackal, £ by E I Bnll. Leiden, The Netherlands. 1987 Inset 1967. 120, 121 Rene Dahinden/Fortean Picture Library, Pictures Ltd., all rights reserved. 136, 137 photomontage
photograph courtesy International Society of Cryptozool- Wales 122. 123: A. B. Wooldndge, Altrincham 124: From Background, John Zimmerman c 1967 Time-Life Books Inc
ogy. Tucson. Arizona, drawing by David Miller from A Liv- Sasquatch The Apes among Us, by John Green, c Cheam from The Heartland (Time-Life Library of America series)
ing Dinosaur' In Search of Mokele-Mbembe, by Dr Roy P Publishing Ltd Saanichton, British Columbia, Canada,
, Movie still from PROPHECY c 1979 by Paramount Pictures
Mackal. c by EJ Bnll, Leiden. The Netherlands, 1987 99: 1978 125: Douglas Kirkland/Sygma 127: c Warner Bros Corporation, all nghts reserved, photograph courtesy Mov-
An by Wendy Popp 101 Pholotheque Musee de I'Homme, Inc., 1953, 1981, all rights reserved, photograph courtesy ie Star News, New York; poster from PROPHECY c 1979 by

Pans 102. 103 John Cleare/Mountain Camera, inset by Movie Star News, New York, detail from page 131 128, 29 1 Paramount Pictures Corporation, all rights reserved

INDEX
Numerals in italics indicate an illustration of B Loch Ness monster research of, 80, 81 Norman, 76
Collins,
the sub/eel mentioned Bandini, Ralph (Tight Lines), 33-34 82; quoted, 81 Columba. Saint. 60-61; quoted. 61
Baradiin, Badzar, 107 Burus (swamp creatures), 70 Conception Bay. 46-51
Barclay. John, 42-43 Bygone Falmouth (Sheila Bird), 37 Congo, 77; map, 93
Abominable Snowman. 18. 100, 103, 105. Barnum. P T , 62 Courtenay-Latimer, Marjory, 18
-of, 103. 104. Basilisk. 12 Courtship in Loch Ness (painting by Scott),
'
100. 102. 103. 104. Bats,bumblebee size, 20 Caddy (sea serpent), 38 See also Sea 80, 82-83
•i alp of. Beaked whale. 41 serpents Cousteau, lacques, 78
104 106 lightings of 100 m 20.000 Fathoms, The (movie), Campbell, Alex, 67, 72 Crew, Jerry. 19 1

Homlnotdi 130131 Campbell, Steuart, 83, 84 Crowley, Aleister. 84

Academy of Applied Science. Loch Ness Beastie See Loch Ness monster Cary, Winifred, 73 Cryptozoology, defined. 18, 20
1 78. 85. 87, 89 Beowulf, 100 Centaur. 57 See also Human-beasts Curry. Roland. 16-17
Adam-. ,ler Bigfoot. 18.98-99. 114, 118. 119. Cephalopods giant octopuses, 19. 24-26.
of, 99, defined. 98, 25, giant squid. 19. 22-23, 45 5/, history
'' 116. 117, 119, 120, 19-26
of, Daedalus (British frigate), 31
<
I
iv of, 99-100. Champ (lake monster), 62, 63, 77
See also Dahinden, Rene. //6. J/7, quoted, 117.
- 99. 114. 117, 118, 119, Lake monsters Sasquatch research of. 118-119. 124
Almav II Hominoids Champlain, Samuel de, 62 Daily Mail (London newspaper) Abomina-
107 I I

quatch m Myth
•
Chessie (sea serpent), 39-40 See also Sea ble Snowman expedition, sponsorship
123
N.ipicr). serpents of. 105. buru expedition, sponsorship
The LOCh N<ns AhMerv Chinese Academy of Sciences, 13 1 of, 70. and search for Loch Ness
i hit. in (centaur). 57 See also Human- monster, 68
de Loys, Francois. 101
• mouth). 37-38 Clark. Mrs B lake monster sketch by, 62. DescriptfOfl 0/ Cnxnland (Egede). 26
.:
rna quoted, 62-63 Dinsdale Tim floor) NOS Monster). 72. 78.
IVid, 37 84. Loch Ness monster film by. 73.
o Sea Cobb Mm 66 77. 81 82. Loch Ness monster
- .

Cochran, Jack Blgrbot drawing by. in lesearch of. 72-73, 80. quoted. 72, 84
k c, 12 Dog-headed men, 57 See ate Human-
mi i och Ness monster beasts
'•
photograph Dory, -J(> 5/, defined, 47

'
inthi .' <
discovery of, is-19, 44. Dncula
Dragons, 7. 8-9. Komodo dragon, 20-21.
 1 1

sea dragon, 18, 19 Halsydrus pontoppidam, sightings of, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81. 83-84, 87, 89. Sur-
Dzu-teh, defined, 104 40-43 See also Sea serpents Jacko (Sasquatch), 1 16. See also Sas- geon's Photograph of, 71, 81, 83; and
Hansen, Frank, 1 1 quatch zeuglodon theory, 85 See also Lake
Harpies, 58. See also Human-beasts James, David, Loch Ness monster monsters; Sea serpents
Edgerton, Harold (Doc) as inventor, 78, Harvey, Moses, 23 research of, 73, 76, 77. 80 Loch Ness Monster (Dinsdale). 72
Loch Ness monster research of, 85, 89 Hasler, H G 76 , Jingquan, Fan, 1 13 Loch Ness Monster and Others. The
85
Eels, 44, Hawk-headed man, 59 See also Human- Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence (Gould), 71
Egede, Hans (Description of Greenland). beasts Centre (JARIC), 73 Loch Ness Mystery Solved, The (Binns),
26; quoted, 26; sea serpent research of, Hercules, 13 Jong, Henk de, 34 81-82
26,42 Heuvelmans, Bernard (In the Wake of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation
Egidi(Mongol prince), 107 Sea-Serpents), 38, 44; iceman research K Bureau See Loch Ness Investigation
Elusive Monster,The (Burton), 80-81 of, 111; quoted, 44; sea serpent Keel, John, 123 Lowrance, Darrell, 90; quoted, 90
Enkidu (hominoid), 99-100 See also research of, 37, 38, 43, 44 Khaklov, V A 110; quoted, 110
M
,

Hominoids Heyerdahl, Thor, 32-33; quoted, 32-33 Khvit (Zana's son), 1 10. See also Almas;
Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, 104 Hill, William C Osman, 106; quoted, Zana Maat (Egyptian goddess), 58. See also
Extraterrestrial; and Sasquatch sightings, 106 Kielar, Alan, 82 Human-beasts
120-123 Hillary, Sir Edmund, 105, Abominable Klein, Martin, 78 Macaque, hands of, 112, 114
Snowman research of, 105-106, 123; Koch, Albert, 28, 30 McDonald, Duncan, 61; quoted, 61
F quoted, 106 Koffmann, Marie-Jeanne, 1 12, quoted, MacDonald, Sir Ramsey, 68
Falmouth Bay, 36 Himalaya Mountains, 102-103 1 12 McDonnell. Duncan, 90
Feifei, defined, 100. See also Hominoids Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Komodo dragon, 20-21 MacDougall, John, 62
Fish pig, 18, 19. See also Sea serpents Expedition, 105 Kraken, 10. II, characteristics of, //. 45; Mackal, Roy P., 77, 91. 92-94, Champ
Fitter, Richard, 76 Historie Naturelle des Mollusques (Mont- history of, 22 See also Squid research of, 77; giant octopus research
Fly, Trie (movie), 127, 132-133 fort), 22 Krantz, Grover, 124, 125; quoted, 124; of, 25, Loch Ness monster research of,

Footprints of Abominable Snowman, 100, Hoaxes regarding Loch Ness monster, 69, Sasquatch research of, 124, 126 77, 85, Mokele-mbembe research of, 77,
102, 103, 104, 105-106; of Almas, 80, 83, regarding sea serpents, 28, 30, 91-97; Ogopogo research of, 77; quoted,
108-109, of Bigfoot, 99, 117, 119, 120, 34, 35, 37, 44 95, 97
124, 725, of Mokele-mbembe, 93, Hog, giant forest, 21 Lake monsters Champ, 62, 63; history of, Mackay, John, 66-67
plantigrade, 103-104; of Sasquatch, 116 Holiday, F 85 w , 61-62; Loch Ness monster, 60-61, 63, Mackay, Mrs John, 66-67; quoted, 67
Forbes, J. C, 72 Home, Everard, 42-43 66-69, 71-73, 74-75, 77-79, 80-81, MacNab, P. A., Loch Ness monster
Fraser, James, 7 Homer (Odyssey), 19, 22, quoted, 22 82-85, 87-89; Morag, 62, 90; Naitaka, photograph by, 75
Freeman, Paul, 126 Hominoids Abominable Snowman, 62; Ogopogo, 62-63; spirits, 61; water M'Quhae, Peter, 31
Frew, Karen, 39-40 100-106, 102, 104, / 05- 06, 122-123,
1 bulls, 61 , water horses, 61 water ; Man-beast creatures See Human-beasts
Frew, Robert, 39-40 124; Almas, 100, 106, 107-1 12, 108-109, kelpies, 61 See also Sea serpents Mansi, Sandra, Champ photograph by,
Bigfoot, 98, 99-100, 114, 117, 118, Lama, 104 63
119, 120, 121, 124, 125, Enkidu, 99-100; Lamia, 57 See also Human-beasts Manta ray, 39
Gaffney, Matthew, 28, quoted, 28 feifei, 100; Grendel, 99-100, oh-mah-ah Landolphia fruit, 95 Manticores, 10
Gargoyle PhotogTaph, 78, 80, 90. See also (omah), 116; Orang-Dalam, 100; LaUmena chalumnae See Coelacanths Martin, Marlene, 16
Loch Ness monster Sasquatch, 98, 114, 116-123, 124-126, LeBlond, Paul H 38-39, 44; quoted, 44
, Mary F. (sea serpent observer), 37;

Genaba, Edgi, 110 satyrs, 57, 100, Wildmen, //2-114 Leopard seals, 44 quoted, 37; sea serpent photograph by,
Genie, 59. See also Human-beasts Howard-Bury, Charles Kenneth, Abomina- Le Serrec, Robert, 34; quoted, 34, 37, sea 36
Gennaro, Joseph F., Jr., 25 ble Snowman research of, 100, 103 serpent photograph by, 35, sea serpent Meade-Waldo, E G B., 32, quoted, 32
Gensheng, Pang, 113-114 Human-beasts, 52-59, Anubis, 56, research of, 34-37 Medusa, 22 See also Cephalopods
George, Saint, 8-9 bishop-fish, 54, Chiron (centaur), 57, Lesueur, Charles-Alexandre, 28 Megamouth (shark), 20
George V (king of England), 71 dog-headed men, 57, genie, 59, harpies, Linnaean Society of New England, 28 Meh-teh, defined, 104
Gigantopithecus, 14. See also Panda,
1 58, hawk-headed man, 59, lamia, 57, LNI. See Loch Ness Investigation Meredith, Dennis, 89; quoted, 89
Tapir Maat, 58; mermaids, 54, 55, merman, Loch Morar, 61-62, 90 Mermaids, 54, 55. See also Human-
Gilgamesh epic, 99-100 Minotaur, 56, monk-fish, 54; satyr,
54, Loch Ness, 64-65, characteristics of, 60, beasts
Gilles clan, 90 57, 100; sphinx, 53; 58-59 63-66, 67, deaths in, 66, ghost ship in, Merman, 54. See also Human-beasts
Gimlin, Bob, 98-99 Huppa Indians, 116, 120; quoted, 120 84, map, 67, sonar probes of, 78, 80, Metoh-kangmi See Abominable Snow-
Gorilla,mountain, 21 Hussein, Ahmed, 19 86-87, 88, 90 man
Gould, Rupert (The Loch Ness Monster and Hutchinson, Young, 17; quoted, 17 Loch Ness and Morar Project. 90 Milne, Ian, 66; quoted, 66
Others), 71 Hybrids, half-human, half-animal See Loch Ness hoodoo, defined, 84 Mindanao trench, 18
Grant, Arthur, 69; quoted, 69 Human-beasts Loch Ness Investigation (LNI): disbanding Minos (king of Crete), 56
Gray, Hugh, 67; Loch Ness monster Hydra, 13 of, 89, Loch Ness monster research of, Minotaur, 56. See also Human-beasts
photograph by, 69; quoted, 67 73, 76-78, 83, 84, 85 Mokele-mbembe, 91-97; food of, 95;

Green, John, Sasquatch research of, 1 16, I Loch Ness monster, 69, 74-75, 79, 80, and
footprint of, 94, lair of, 94-95,

117, 118-119 Iceman, 111 81, cage for, 69, characteristics of, 67, sauropod theory. 77, 91, 97
Green well, Richard, 91-92, 95 Imaizumi, Yoshinori, 43; quoted, 43 77, 78, and eel theory, 85; fin of, 79, Monkeys, macaque, 112, 114
Grendel, 99-100. See also Hominoids International Society of Cryptozoology, 80, 82, Gargoyle Photograph of, 78, 80, Monk-fish, 54 See also Human-beasts
Grieve, Donald W., 124; quoted, 124 40,90 90; and giant mammal theory, 85, Monsters, in movies, 127-/37 See also
Griffins, 7, 14-15 In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (Heuvel- hoaxes regarding, 68-69, 80, 83-84; and specific creatures, Movies

Guoxing, Zhou, 113, 114, quoted, 1 14 mans), 38 oLer theory, 80-81, 83, 85; and plesio- Montfort, Pierre Denys de (Histone
"Island beast," 22. See also Kraken saur theory, 69-71, 82-83, 84; and pre- Naturelle des Mollusques): octopus
H Ivlov, Ivan, 107-110 historic worm theory, 84-85, and psy- drawing by, 24, sea serpent research of,

Hallucinations: and Sasquatch, 120-123, Izzard, Ralph, 70; Abominable Snowman chic phenomenon theory, 84, sightings 22
and UFOs, 120-123 research of, 105, quoted, 70 of, 60-61, 63, 66-69, 71-72, 73, 74-75. Morag (lake monster), sightings of, 62, 90.

141
 See also Lake monsters Scylla, 22 Spicer, Mrs George, 67; quoted, 67
More Than a Legend (Whyte), 72 Pacific Northwest, 115 Sea cows, 85 Spirits, 61 See also Lake monsters
Morgawr (sea serpent). 36; history of. 37; Panda, giant. 21, 114 Sea devil, 18 Squid, giant (Architeuthis dux). 1 1 , 48-5/,

sightings of, 37-38 See also Sea Patterson, Roger Bigfoot film by, 98, 99, Sea dragon, 18, 19 attack on fishermen by, 45, 48-51;

serpents 118. 119. 120, 124; Bigfoot research of, Seals, 44, 85 characteristics of, 45, 48; discovery of,

Morns, Desmond, 123; quoted, 123 98-99, quoted, 99 Searle, Frank (Nessie: Seven Years in 19; sightings of, 22-23, 45-5/, tentacles
Mountain, Sir Edward, 71. 85 Peace, John, 40-42 Search of the Monster): Loch Ness of, 48-5/ See also Cephalopods
Mountbalten. Earl. 70 Peacock, 20 monster photographs by, 83; Loch Squires, Daniel, giant squid attack on,

Movies, monsters in, 127-/37, The Beast Peccaries, 20 Ness monster research of, 83-84 46-51
from 20,000 Fathoms. 130-131. The Piccot, Theophilus, giant squid attack on, Sea serpents, 18-19. 26, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35; Squirting whale, 18
Fly, 127, 132-133. The Mutations. 46-5/ Atlantic Humped Snake, 28; Bobo, 33; Steenstrup, Johan Japetus, 22
134- 1 35. Prophecy. 136-137. Them' Piccot, Tom, giant squid attack on, Caddy (Vancouver Island monster), 38; Stephen (UFO and Sasquatch observer),
128-129 46-51 carcasses of, 40-41, characteristics of, 120-122
Mutations. The (movie), 134- 135 Pig whale, 19 26, 31, 32. 33-34, 44; Chessie, 39-40; Stinson Beach, 16-17
Plesiosaurs, 42, 43,and Loch Ness and eel theory, 44; fish pig, 18, 19; Stonor, Charles, 70
N monster sightings, 69, 71, 82-83, 84; hoaxes regarding, 28, 30, 34, 35, 37, 44; Stout,Mrs E., 38-39; quoted, 39
Nailaka (Indian demon god), 62 See also and sea serpent sightings, 43, 44 and known-phenomenon theories, 44; Stronsa beast (Halsydrus pontoppidani),
Lake monsters Pliny, 45 and leopard seal theory, 44; Morgawr, sighting of, 40-43 See also Sea
Napier. John (Bigfoot The Yeti and Polo, Marco, 57; quoted, 57 36, 37-38; and oarfish theory, 44; Old serpents
Sasquatch in Myth and Reality). 123, 124; Pontoppidan, Eric Ludvigsen (Natural Man, 33; and plesiosaur theory, 43, 44; Surgeons Photograph, 71, 74, 81, 83 See
quoted. 123 History of Norway), 22; quoted, 22 and porpoise theory, 44; San Clemente also Loch Ness monster; Wilson, Robert
Narwhal (boat). 78 Porpoises, and sea serpent sightings, monster, 33-34; Scoliophis atlanticus, 28; Kenneth
Nash. Lonson, 28 44 sightingsof, 16-17, 26-28, 31-42; skele- Swamp creatures, 70. See also Bums
National Geographic (magazine), 86-87 Porshnev, Boris, 110-112; quoted, 1 12 tons of, 28, 30; and snake theory, 44; Synge, Richard L M , 61
Natural History of Norway (Pontoppidan), Powell, James, 91 spirits, 61; Stronsa beast (Halsydrus
22 Prophecy (movie), 136-137 pontoppidan!), 40-43; and zeuglodon T
Neanderthals. III. 112 Przewalski, Nikolai, 107 theory, 44. See also Lake monsters Tamar of Hang, 70
Neill. Patrick. 42 Przewalski's horse. 107, 112 Serow defined, 104; scalp of, 104, 106 Tapir, 114
Nemesis (Greek goddess), 14-15 Psyche (witch), 37 Shalikula (Zana's grandson), 1 12. See also Teh, defined, 104
Nessie See Loch Ness monster Pythons, 44 Almas; Zana Tepes. Vlad, 9
Nessie Seven Years in Search of the Sharks: basking shark, 42, 43, Mega- Them' (movie), 128-129
t (Searle). 84 R mouth, 20; whale shark, 39 Theseus. 56
Nessiteras rhombopteryx See Loch Ness Ratio, Matt. 16, 17 Shiels, Anthony (Doc), 36, 37 Thompson, David, 1 16
monster Razdan, Rikki, 82 Shiels, Kate, 37 Tight Lines (Bandini), 33-34
New York Times (newspaper). 85 Rhedosaurus, 130-131 Shine, Adrian, 89; Loch Ness monster Titmus, Bob, 119
Nicoll, Michael ) . 32. 33. quoted. 33 Rines, Robert, 78, 80, Loch Ness monster research of, 85; Morag research of, 89, Tombazi, N A , 103. quoted, 103
photographs by, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 90 Tuna Club, 33
o 90, Loch Ness monster research of, 77, Shipton, Eric Abominable Snowman
78, 79, 85, 89, quoted, 80 photographs by, 102. 116, 123; u
I giant. 19. 24. 25. habitat of. Roe, William, 1 17-1 18; quoted, 117, 118; Abominable Snowman research of, UFOs and electromagnetic energy theory,
iiihlmgs of. 24-26 See also Sasquatch drawing by, 1 14 104-105; quoted, 104 122-123; and hallucinations
Ccph.il Sibert, John, 38-39. 44. quoted. 44 theory, 122-123, sightings of, 120-
puses s Sightings Abominable Snowman, 100, 123
M 22 Salish Indians. 1 16 103, 122-123, 124; Almas, 100, 107-112; Urquharl Castle, 64-65, 66, 85
Ogopogo (Lake Okanagan monster), Sally(American schooner), 29 Bigfoot, 98, 99, 114, 118, 119, 120;
iVe monsters San Clemenle monster, 33-34 See also Caddy (Vancouver Island monster), 38;
( >n mtfl Sea serpents Champ, 62, 63, Chessie, 39-40; giant Valhalla (British yacht), 32
Hnnii- Sanderson, Ivan T Ill; quoted, 111. sea octopuses. 24-26, giant squid. 22-23. Vancouver Island monster,
. 38. See also
Okanag.i; serpent research of. 37 45-51, Loch Ness monster, 60-61, 63, Caddy; Sea serpents
•
Santa Qan (U s steamer). 34 66-69, 71-72, 73, 74-75, 77, 78, 79, 80, Venuss-flytrap. 134-135
Sasquatch. IN. defined. 98. and 81. 83-84. 87-89;
of Morag, 62, 90; Verrill, A E 24-25
,

electromagnetic energy theory. 122-123, Morgawr, 37-38; Ogopogo, 62-63; Viperthh (submarine). 76-77
• .iicrrcsiri.il theory, 120-123, Sasquatch, 114. 116-122, 124-126. sea Vivienne (witch). 37
Homl footprints of I16. II7, and hallucina- pentS, 16-17. 26-28. 31-42. Skunk
w
,

M.M.I'.
123; history of. 116. Ape, 120. Stronsa beast. 40-43, UFOs,
114, 116-122, 120-123, Wildmen. //2-II4 Waddell, L A , 100. quoted. 100
ninoids Simpson. William, 90 Wallace, Wilbur, 119
Hominoids. Skunk Ape. 120 See also Hominoids Ward. Michael, 103
Human sink Tom, 105, 120 Water bulls, 61 See also Lake monsters
rtstlcs of, 90, Smith, J L B. 18-19 Water Horse (boat), 73
Snakes. 44 Water horses, 61 See also Lake monsters
I 107 Sonar probes of Loch Morar. 90. of Loch Water kelpies, 61 See also Lake monsters
U 90 See also Webb, DeWitt, 24, 25
Operation Deepscan Welherall, M A
spcriin^, Stephen. 23 Whales. 19, beaked whale. 41. blue
Sphinx 53 it Human-beasts whale. J9. and Loch Ness monster
67; quoted. 67 sightings. 85, pig whale, 19. squirting
 whale, 18 See also Zeuglodon Wood, Forrest Glen, 25 Y Zeuglodon, 30, 39, defined, 44, 85; and
Whale shark, 39 Wooldndge, Anthony B : Abominable Yano, Michihiko, sea serpent drawings Loch Ness monster sighting, 85; and
Whyte, Constance (More Than a Legend), Snowman photograph by, 122-123, 124; by, 43 sea serpent sightings, 44. See also
Loch Ness monster research of, 72, 76, quoted, 123-124 Yeh-teh See Abominable Snowman Whales
83 Worm, prehistoric, and Loch Ness Yeti. See Abominable Snowman Zug, George R: Loch Ness monster
Wildmen hands of, ; 12. 1 14, sightings of, monster sightings, 84-85 Yulan, Gong, / 13 research of, 78, 80, 85; and sea
; 12-\ 14 See also Hominoids Wyckoff, Charles, Loch Ness monster serpents. 40; quoted, 40
Wilson, Robert Kenneth: Loch Ness research of, 78, 85, 87, 89 Z ZuiyoMaru (Japanese trawler),
monster photograph by, 71, 74, 81, 83; Wyckoff, Helen, 89 Zana (Almas), history of 106. 1 10-1 12. sea serpent carcass netted by, 42,
quoted, 71 Wyman, Jeffries, 30 See also Almas 43

143
Time-Ljfe Books Inc MYSTERIES OF THE UNKNOWN Other Publications:
TIME
is a wholly owned subsidiary of

TIME INCORPORATED
SERIES DIRECTOR Russell B Adams, Jr
Series Administrator: Myrna Traylor-Herndon
THE TIME-LIFE GARDENER'S GUIDE
TIME FRAME
Dm
books
Designer: Herbert H Quarmby FIX ITYOURSELF
FOUNDER Henry R Luce 1898-1967 FITNESS, HEALTH & NUTRITION
Editorial Staff for Mysterious Creatures
SUCCESSFUL PARENTING
Editor-in-Chief Jason McManus Associate Editors: lane N Coughran (pictures);
HEALTHY HOME COOKING
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer J Richard Munro Janet Cave (text)
UNDERSTANDING COMPUTERS
President and Chief Operating Officer;N ) Nicholas. Jr Assistant Designer Lorraine D Rivard
LIBRARY OF NATIONS
Editonal Director Ray Cave Copy Coordinator Mary Beth Oelkers-Keegan
THE ENCHANTED WORLD
Executive Vice President, Books Kelso F Sutlon Picture Coordinator: Betty H Weatherley
THE KODAK LIBRARY OF CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY
Vice President. Books George Artandi Researchers: Scarlet Cheng, Christian D Kinney,
GREAT MEALS IN MINUTES
Constance Strawbridge Contreras
THE CIVIL WAR
Editorial Assistant Donna Fountain
TIME-UFE BOOKS INC. PLANET EARTH
Special Contributors Christine Hinze (London, picture COLLECTOR'S LIBRARY OF THE CIVIL WAR
EDITOR George Constable George Daniels, THE EPIC OF FLIGHT
research), Laura Akgulian, Sarah Brash,
Executive Editor Ellen Phillips
Martha Leff, Thomas A Lewis, Jake Page, Marilynne R THE GOOD COOK
Director of Design Louis Klein
Rudick, Sandra Salmans, Daniel Stashower (text), WORLD WAR II
Director of Editorial Resources Phyllis K Wise
John Drummond (design), Vilasini Balakrishnan, Denise HOME REPAIR AND IMPROVEMENT
Editonal Board Russell B Adams, Jr,Brown, Dale M Dersin, Anne Munoz-Furlong, Melva Holloman, Sharon THE OLD WEST
Roberta Conlan, Thomas H Flaherty, Lee Hassig, Donia
Obermiller, Patricia A Paterno, Rhoda Christine Russell
Ann Steele, Rosalind Stubenberg. Henry Woodhead
(research) For information on and a full description of any of the
Director of Photography and Research:
Time-Life Books series listed above, please call 1-800-621-
John Conrad Weiser
Correspondents Elisabeth Kraemer-Singh (Bonn), Vanessa 7026 or write
Assistant Director of Editonal Resources: Elise Ritter Gibson
Kramer (London), Maria Vincenza Aloisi (Paris), Ann Reader Information
PRESIDENT Christopher T Linen Natanson (Rome) Time-Life Customer Service
Chief Operating Officer John M Fahey, Jr Valuable assistance was also provided by Judy Aspinall P O. Box C-32068
Senior Vice Presidents Robert M DeSena, James L Mercer, (London), Elizabeth Brown, Christina Lieberman (New Richmond, Virginia 23261-2068
Paul R Stewart York)
Vice Presidents Ralph J Cuomo, Neal
Stephen L Bair. This volume is one of a series that examines the history

God. Stephen L Goldstein, Juanita T James, Halletl The Consultants: and nature of seemingly paranormal phenomena Other
lohnvm III, Carol Kaplan, Susan J Maruyama, Robert H Marcello Truzzi, professor of sociology at Eastern books in the series include:
Smith. Joseph J Ward Michigan University, is also director of the Center for Mystic Places
/ Ptvdut lion S<-rvices Robert I Passantino Scientific Anomalies Research (CSAR) and editor of its Psychic Powers
journal, the Zetetic Scholar Dr Truzzi, who considers The UFO Phenomenon
Editorial Operations himself a "constructive skeptic" with regard to claims of Psychic Voyages
i Diane Ullius the paranormal, works through the CSAR to produce Phantom Encounters
Ceha Beattie dialogues between critics and proponents of unusual Visions and Prophecies
Uhrarv Louise D Forstall scientific claims
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Richard Greenwell has served as secretary and editor of Mysterious creatures
J

publications for the International Society of Cryptozoology (Mysteries of the unknown)

since its founding in 1982 and is the author of Animals Bibliography: p

work on obscure animals In

without Heritage, a definitive Includes index
such creatures, he has done fieldwork in
his search for 1 Monsters I Time-Life Books
two dozen countries, among them New Guinea and the QL89H92I988 001944 88-2124
Congo ISBN 0-8094-6332-6
ISBN 0-8094-6333-4 (lib bdg )

c 1988 Time-Life Books Inc All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including informa-
tion storage and retrieval devices or systems, without
prior written permission from the publisher, except that
brief passages may be quoted for reviews
First printing Printed in us a
k) simultaneously in Canada
School and library distribution by Silver Burdett Company.
MorrtStOWn New krsey 07960

TIME-UFE is a trademark of Time Incorporated USA

lime I lie Books Ira otters ,i wide range ol fine record-
ings. Including a Hot k n Roll Era series For subscription
lion, call 1-800-62 1-7026 or write Time-Life
Musk PO Box C-3206S .Richmond. Virginia 23261 -2068
 H
H »>
ryiv."