Monster Lookalikes: Reflections of a Paranatural Naturalist
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
[ INVESTIGATIVE FILES JOE NICKELL Joe Nickell, PhD, is CSI’s senior research fellow. He has worked professionally as a stage magician, private investigator, and scholar. Among his many books is Tracking the Man-Beasts (Prometheus Books, 2011). Monster Lookalikes: Reflections of a Paranatural Naturalist ver my years as a skeptical cryp- more feet long, swimming with an Lake Champlain. As one man observed, tozoologist—writing numerous up-and-down motion on the surface “In one frame it almost looks as if the Oarticles and books about my of the lake. Unfortunately, as I found head of an alligator-like animal breaks investigations of strange creatures, as (with the help of Aquarium of Niag- the surface. .” Although neither saw well as appearing on such television ara in Niagara Falls, New York, where the entire body, they estimated it to be shows as National Geographic’s Is I was once Animal Trainer for a Day), ten to fifteen feet long and as big around It Real? and the History Channel’s real giant eels instead swim with a side- as a man’s thigh. I investigated the matter Monster Quest—I have taken a simple to-side locomotion and are nocturnal for LiveScience and suggested the men approach. I have found that it is often bottom-dwellers. However, there is a had seen the same sort of fish that French possible to identify a real, natural-world creature with the required characteris- explorer Samuel de Champlain described lookalike for a given fabulous creature, tics—namely multiple otters swimming in his journal in 1609. Champlain wrote one that could be mistaken for it. in their undulating fashion, in a line, that it was “as big as my thigh,” resem- While a naturalist is one who stud- and so creating the illusion of a sin- bling a pike with an exceedingly long ies the natural world using the meth- gle giant serpentine creature slithering snout and “dangerous teeth.” I concluded odology of science, I use the term across the water (Nickell 2012). that both the 1609 and 2006 sightings paranatural naturalist to describe one “Champ” et al. In addition to the probably involved an alligator-resembling who applies the naturalist’s methods to Giant Eel, otters also make some of fish called a gar (one of the Ganoidei sub- mysteries of the paranatural with the the best lookalikes for other lake and class, which includes sturgeons), either intention of solving them. Here follows river monsters. Indeed, the fact that ot- the longnose gar or much larger alligator a generous sampling of my investigative ters swimming in a line can appear as gar. During one of my investigative trips work in this regard, focusing on “mon- a single great creature was observed in to the lake, I interviewed a man who had sters” and other entities. the Scottish river Clyde as early as 1930 just witnessed a friend hook such a “mon- (Gould 1934, 115–17). The illusion has ster”-sized gar, measuring about six feet, Lake and River Monsters since been confirmed elsewhere (Nick- four inches long. He dubbed it “Gar-gan- Some of the most famous of the ell 2007b, 6–7), and so this represents a tua” (Nickell 2006). world’s mysterious creatures are those very viable hypothesis in cases where the “Memphre.” As yet another curious that reputedly inhabit inland water- evidence warrants and where otters can lake creature, consider “Memphre,” ways: the Giant Eel of Lake Crescent, exist. For example, at Lake Champlain the resident monster of Lake Mem- Newfoundland; both Lake Champlain’s a witness conceded that his sighting of phremagog, which is located largely in long-necked “Champ” and its crypto- “Champ” “could have been one large north-central Vermont but extends into alligator; Lake Memphremagog’s creature or four smaller ones”; signifi- Quebec. I have investigated its waters “Mem phre”; and, of course, Scotland’s cantly, the sighting was at the mouth of for a Montreal television documentary famous “Nessie.” Otter Creek—an aptly named habitat and for an article, in the latter case in- Giant Eel. Consider “Cressie,” the to be sure (Nickell 2007b, 6). terviewing a woman who has had nu- legendary giant eel of Lake Crescent, Crypto-“Alligator.” Not all lake mon- merous sightings. In one instance, she Newfoundland, which I investigated sters are otters, of course. On February photographed the swimming creature. for Monster Quest. Of the invariably 22, 2006, Good Morning America aired The fisherman whose boat she was daytime sightings, most involve a dark exclusive video footage of what a pair using told her he had earlier seen a bea- eel-like creature, up to twenty-five or of Vermont fishermen encountered in ver in the vicinity, but she seemed not 12 Volume 39 Issue 3 | Skeptical Inquirer to make the connection when she sub- Newfoundland coastal waters, and a seal has no external ears, he may have sequently told me how she had heard sea serpent—dubbed Cadborosaurus— erred in this detail, having seen what the monster make a slapping sound— that today supposedly inhabits British expectation led him to see—or to “re- as when, she indicated, one slaps the Columbia’s Cadboro Bay. member” a decade later (Nickell 2011a, water with a hand. Of course, beavers Newfoundland “Mermaid.” In 1610, 208–209). produce just such slapping sounds with a Captain Richard Whitbourne and his Sea Serpent: Cadborosaurus. Even at their tails to signal danger. But not all men encountered a strange sea creature night, I can attest, British Columbia’s sightings of “Memphre” are beavers; in the waters off Newfoundland. A de- Cadboro Bay is picturesque. And, if one photograph of the creature turned cade later, in his A Discourse and Discov- eyewitnesses can be believed, it is also out to show a moose swimming across ery of New-found-land, he described it as home to a sea serpent that has been the lake (Nickell 2004). beautiful with a comely face, well-pro- popularly labeled “Cadborosaurus” (after Loch Ness Monster. The world’s most portioned, and having “blew strakes” the bay and the Latin word saurus, “liz- famous lake monster inhabits a loch (blue streaks) on its head “resembling ard”). Some sightings may have been sea (lake) in northern Scotland. There is not a single explanation for all the sightings that are lumped together and affectionately called “Nessie.” Some are hoaxes (like the famous April 1934 Nessie photo), while others have been attributed to salmon and other fish, long-necked water birds, swimming deer, bobbing logs, seals entering from the sea via the River Ness (as con- firmed to me by an information officer in Inverness), motorboats (seen from a distance), boat wakes, wind slicks, and more (Binns 1984; Shine 2006). In May 2007, a video of the alleged crea- ture surfaced, and I was asked by CNN International and again by CNN’s Paula Zahn Now to view the footage (by one Gordon Holmes) and offer an opinion. Subsequently, I debated cryptozoologist Loren Coleman on the latter show and suggested that the creature was probably a large European otter (Lutra lutra). Coleman would later call this “Otter Nonsense” and I would respond that “he otter know bet- ter.” Subsequently, I had time to study the video more thoroughly with CFI haire,” with a squarish white back, and lions or even seals—not multiple otters. video expert Tom Flynn. It appeared hands with which it attempted to climb Indeed, a witness in 1997 saw what at that the creature’s size, speed (which into the boat. He did admit, however, first “looked like three seals in a row,” al- caused a long wake), and undulating that “whether it were a Maremaid or though he later convinced himself it was locomotion were quite consistent with no, I know not; I leave it for others to a single, lengthy creature—mistakenly, I a single otter (Nickell 2007c). judge.” Now, sightings of mermaids or suspect (Nickell 2007a, 22). Following sirens are usually explained as sea cows the article I wrote on Caddy sightings, I Sea Creatures (i.e., the dugong or manatee, both of received a letter from British Columbia Incredibly more so than even the larg- the order Sirenia). However, I suggest skeptic Steve Koerner, who told how in est lakes, the ocean has the possibility Whitbourne and crew encountered a 1996 he was on a cliff overlooking Tele- of fantastic creatures—the prehistoric species of hair seal. For example, the graph Cove, just about a half kilometer coelacanth, for instance, a fish once harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) may indeed further east from the bay. He spotted thought extinct, and the giant squid, be white, have blue streaks on its head, what appeared to be a great sea serpent the legendary “Kraken,” that is now and exhibit a mammal’s face, shoulders, coming toward the beach. Then he proven to exist. Here, I identify the and “hands” (flippers) upon a fish’s body watched as one otter climbed out, “soon likely real creatures behind a “mer- (Whitaker 1996, 728–730). Although followed by the rest of the family” (Ko- maid” of early seventeenth-century Whitbourne mentioned “ears,” and the erner 2007). Skeptical Inquirer | May/June 2015 13 Hairy Man-Beasts Extraterrestrials 1933 at first “thought it was a bear on Especially of interest to humankind are the porch, but this animal was standing Among the alien beings that allegedly hairy man-beasts: mythological beings on its back legs [!] and was so large it visited our planet in the 1950s and seemingly from our evolutionary past. was bending over to look in the win- 1960s were such fanciful creatures as Here we look at widespread reports of dow.” In the moonlight, she decided the “Flatwoods Monster,” some “Little North America’s Bigfoot, as well as a it “looked like an ape” (Bord and Bord Green Men,” and the iconic “Mothman.” supposedly malodorous regional vari- 2006, 31–33; Nickell 2013a).