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Monsters are coming: cryptozoology

What is cryptozoology? In the mid-1950s, the Belgian zoologist, Bernard Heuvelmans (1916-2001) coined the term “cryptozoology”, from the Greek kryptos (hidden), zoion (animal) and logos (study) and that is "study of hidden animals”. Palaeontology studies and describes organisms of the past, while cryptozoology seeks to do the same with animals that are currently living but are still unknown. Very often cryptozoological reconstructions are no more fanciful that those of palaeontology and, starting from the assumption that not all land and aquatic animals have been discovered yet, the aim of cryptozoology is to dispel the legends upon which these creatures are based and add new known species. It is assumed, in fact, that these “hidden” species , known as “cryptids”, are well known to the local populations but not to the scientific world, and therefore cryptozoology is an “evidentiary science” that is it is based on at least one piece of circumstantial evidence. As a result, if a new species is discovered, the existence of which was not in the least suspected, either because it is a very tiny sized species or because it lives in inaccessible areas, it is not possible to talk of cryptozoology.

A science or a pseudoscience? This branch of study is not held in high regard within the scientific world and it sometimes is considered as a “pseudoscience”, a category that includes disciplines using non-traditional methods to explain events and natural phenomena, that appear strange and unexplainable. To do so, pseudoscience uses non-scientific methods and for this reason the prefix “pseudo”, that Is “false”, is added because it has nothing to do with science. Pseudosciences include astrology, graphology and a number of alternative practices. Unfortunately, over the years cryptozoology has aroused the interest of self-proclaimed experts who often have associated strange and esoteric reasoning with this discipline, even connecting the hidden animals with UFOs, ghosts, myths and legends. However, there are many essential elements that distinguish cryptozoology from pseudosciences and these are based on indisputable factors such as:

 Not all the animals existing on our Planet have been discovered as yet.  New large-sized species, up to now unknown to science, are still being discovered.  These animals are a discovery for zoologists, but not for the local populations where they were found.  The discovery of these hidden animals takes place years and even centuries after the first information on them has arrived.  Cryptozoology is based on verifiable theories using bibliographic sources, biological analyses, etc.  It also relies on other disciplines such as zoology, palaeontology, anatomy, ethology, taxonomy, etc.  This discipline is based on the hypotheses' principle of economy, that is it does not contradict the laws of physics unlike, for example, psychokinesis or levitation.

Just like a crime scene Satisfactory zoological analysis to discover a presumed but unknown animal species must be based on three types of proof or evidence, exactly as on a crime scene.

 Autopsy evidence: this is proof that is visible to everyone, for example the body of a strange animal or a photo or film of it, exactly like a video of a criminal in the act of committing an offence as far as an actual crime is concerned. This type of evidence is the rarest. The majority of legal investigations are based precisely on

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plausibility rather than on certainty. In cryptozoology too, there are cases in which, especially in the field of cetology and ornithology, the only documentation is based on sightings by authoritative researchers.  Circumstantial evidence: such evidence is much more common than autopsy evidence. This is “concomitant evidence”. Examples of this type of evidence are tracks left on the ground, traces of hair, scales or feathers. For instance, in 1913 in Africa, the zoologist Herbert Lang purchased a souvenir made of feathers. From one of these feathers the zoologist traced an unknown species of peacock, officially discovered 23 years later and described with the name of Afropavo congenesis. In other cases, new species of lemurs have been discovered in Madagascar starting from unusual calls. In the case of actual judicial inquiries, such evidence may be the discovery of a corpse, of the murder weapon or of fragments of skin under the nails of the victim, where a murder is concerned.  Witness evidence: this is certainly the most frequent kind of evidence, but also the most imprecise and criticised, because Experimental Psychology studies have shown how unreliable the human memory and the cognitive system are when storing data. Exactly as with evidence given by witnesses to a crime, extremely painstaking analysis is fundamental for the sighting of unknown animals too.

Initially, therefore, cryptozoological investigations assess whether or not the existence of an unknown animal is plausible without a strict scientific demonstration, while during a second phase, which may occur even years later, tangible proof that demonstrates its existence must be obtained since, unlike a legal investigation, plausibility alone is not sufficient.

Let us expose the Loch Ness monster 70 years of naturalistic studies have demonstrated without any shadow of doubt that the “Loch Ness monster”, an imaginary Scottish creature searched for by cryptozoologists for years, is nothing more than a legend that has evolved over time for various motives. There is no single explanation for the numerous sightings, photographs, films and sonar measurements that have brought into being the legend of Nessie, as this very famous monster is affectionately called all over the world. Below, we will attempt to give some explanations.

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View of Loch Ness

Characteristics of the loch Loch Ness is a glacial lake formed around 10,000 years ago at an altitude of 16 metres above seal level. It is 36.6 km long and 2 km wide and reaches a maximum depth of 227 metres. Its 7,452 million cubic metres make it the largest volume of freshwater in the whole of Great Britain. The vegetation in and around the lake is very sparse and absolutely insufficient to feed a hypothetical herd of large herbivores. In the first few metres of depth of the lake, fish such as cyprinids, sticklebacks, lampreys and trout can be found, while in the deeper waters there are eels and chars, but also a multitude of microscopic organisms, mostly filter feeders. Excluding algae and zooplankton, scientists have established that the approximately 20 tons of biomass of the lake, at theoretical level, would be able to barely sustain a population of 2 tons of super predators, for example 20 animals weighing 100 kg. To be able to get an idea of what we are talking about, it must be remembered that the striped dolphin, the dolphin most commonly observed in the Mediterranean, can weigh as much as 160 kg with a length of 2 m, while a blue shark, a species living in the waters along the coast of Italy, measuring 3 m in length can weigh as much as 200 kg. The origin of the legend The legend of the Loch Ness monster seems to have come into being in 1933 when a man and his wife were driving along the road running round the lake that had recently been widened. They saw a strange sight: an enormous animal similar to a whale was writhing and diving causing splashes of water. A newspaper article was written on the subject and the legend began. How can so many sightings be explained? From the database of “The Official Loch Ness Exhibition Centre”, it can be seen that there are records of no fewer than 10,000 eye witnesses who claim to have seen a strange presence in the loch. Many explanations could be given on the subject, starting from numerous natural phenomena that could be mistaken for Nessie.

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Mirages The waters of the lake, for example, are subject to singular optical phenomena. In fact, the volume of water in the lake reacts very slowly to the seasonal temperature changes and therefore the surface of the water is often colder than the surrounding air; this cools the layers of air closest to the water creating prism effects that make objects appear to be much larger then they actually are. These kinds of mirage obviously occur for the animals that can be found in the area too, such as grebes and cormorants, which therefore appear to be large animals with long necks, similar to extinct plesiosaurs. Freak waves Waves are some of the main causes of the sightings of the alleged monster, especially when these sightings are described as of snake-like animals with numerous humps. In fact, when the waters of the lake are calm, the wake left by boats on the lake remain visible long afterwards, even when the boat that causes them can no longer be distinguished by the naked eye. These wakes remain visible for very long distances and it is precisely in these climatic conditions that the majority of sightings of Nessie have occurred. Inanimate objects Floating trunks, rocks and boats may be taken for monsters, as in the famous film sequence by Tim Dinsdale, where in reality, the 'monster' was a small fishing boat.

The waters of Loch Ness are subject to singular optical phenomena.

The animals of the lake On 20 August1952, Greta Finlay and her son Harry were startled by a splash in the water and close to the bank of the river, they saw a “monster” with shiny black skin and a very strange neck and head with two protuberances each terminating in a round blob. Harry made a sketch of the animal that he had seen and later the zoologist Maurice Burton, after carefully analysing it, drew another sketch based on the photo of a young stag swimming in the loch. The result was

Home / Life / Specials very similar. Very often, in fact, stags have been seen swimming in the loch and have also been photographed. It should be remembered that in August the antlers of stags (which they shed every year in spring) are still growing and look like two small antennae with a blob at the top. Moreover, the wet coat of a stag becomes black and smooth, so that it seems almost like the hairless skin of a snake or a fish. There have been a great many sightings of creatures with two antennae near the loch and, as it happens, almost all of them occurred in August! Other animals that can be seen close to Loch Ness include grey seals, which indeed correspond to other sightings of monsters with a compact body supported by two short legs, moving like caterpillars. Another local animal is the otter, although it is rarely seen due to its nocturnal habits. One single individual could never be taken to be a monster, but a group of otters swimming in the water could seem to be something similar to a water monster with humps, especially if the otters swim in single file jumping out of the water. Photographs of the monster There are around forty or so photographs, allegedly portraying Nessie, but following careful analysis and long studies, it can be said that no photo portrays the Loch Ness monster. Studies with sonar Sonar instruments are unable to provide us with the exact dimensions and shape of an object. The strength of the sonar signal is a ratio between the density of the object and the water, the size of the object and its shape. The density of a fish's flesh differs very little from that of water. In fact, the strength of the signal comes from the gas contained in the swim bladder which creates weak signals, while marine mammals generate much stronger signals. Sonar has been used many times to search for Nessie, but no convincing results have ever been found. In 1986, the ”Operation Deep Scan” probed the waters of the loch with a fleet of 20 boats sailing side by side in a straight line so that they would not miss any signal. Most of the contacts proved to be false alarms caused by inanimate objects on the bed of the loch, but three cases detected at depths of 78, 172 and 174 metres to date have still not been explained. Identikit of a monster The various accounts collected have been used to sketch an identikit of the monster: a black or brown animal between 6 and 10 metres long with a long neck and a small head, two or three humps on its back, four fin-like limbs and a tail, sighted both in the water and on dry land. This creature, very similar to a plesiosaur, could not have survived the passage of millenniums in a place visited by thousands of tourists every year without leaving even the smallest trace of its existence (for example, no fossils that can be traced back to Nessie have ever been found). Some cryptozoologists have speculated that it may be a large sea lion with humps of adipose tissue and a long flexible neck, but on the other hand, an animal with such characteristics would already have been discovered some time ago! Another hypothesis on what animal Nessie may be is that it is a large fish, for example a huge eel. Eels can be found in the loch, but the maximum length ever reached by a European eel is around 180 cm, a size that certainly could not give the idea of a monster. Assuming that there is a population of very large eels or of any other large fish in the loch, they could certainly not have failed to be caught in hundreds of years of fishing or 70 years of scientific sampling. More probably then, it may be that there are rare individual eels which sometimes reach unexpected dimensions, such that their sighting may seem reminiscent of Nessie to people who are particularly easily persuaded. In the light of early accounts that told of “a strange fish”, perhaps it is possible that the creature may be a common sturgeon. The sturgeon is a large fish that can grow to a length of 3 metres and it is an anadromous species, that is it can live both in freshwater and saltwater, and it swims upstream in rivers to spawn. While sturgeons do not breed in Great Britain, some individuals have been sighted and captured in Wales and near Inverness. These fish are very long-lived and can survive on average up to as much as 100 years and this could be an acceptable explanation of the fact that the legend has continued for very many years, while at the same time their very small numbers would have been able to elude all attempts to capture them.

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A reconstruction of the Loch Ness Monster

Monster or legend? A last issue to be dealt with to understand whether Nessie really exists, is an experiment conducted at the end of the 1970s by Adrian Shine, who still heads the “Loch Ness & Morar Project” today. This marine biologist devised an experiment to test the perceptive capacities of volunteers arriving at Loch Morar to seek out Morag, Nessie's “cousin”. He lowered a long, straight wooden pole into the loch at a certain distance from the shore, to which a pulley and a rope were attached. The pole remained completely submerged, but if the rope was slackened, it poked out of the water, seeming like an emerging animal. Visitors arriving for the first time were left on their own for a while and in that time span the wooden pole was made to poke out of the water. Asked later to make a sketch of the alleged sighted animal, an incredible number of witnesses drew a small head with a long neck, even though the pole had no bulges. The witnesses knew the presumed appearance of Morag and reproduced what they expected to see and not what really appeared.

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If, despite everything, you still believe in the existence of the Loch Ness monster… You should know that it is now possible for you to navigate from your own home in the dark waters of Loch Ness using Street View, the Google Maps service for all-round exploration, with panoramic photos of the site. It is even possible to 'dive' down into the lake because special equipment has made it possible to take photos at depth, despite the darkness of the water.

The Puerto Rican vampire: the legend of Chupacabra You do not have to be a fan of the Misteri or Voyager TV programmes to have heard about chupacabra. The chupacabra or chupacabras is a legendary animal thought to live in a number of areas of the Americas. Its name derives from the Spanish wordschupar meaning “to suck” and cabra, meaning “goat” and therefore its literal meaning is the “goat sucker”. The name stems from the belief that the animal is in the habit of sucking the blood of goats and other domestic animals. The chupacabra originates from the island of Puerto Rico. In March 1995, strange rumours began circulating on goats and other farm animals that had been found dead, apparently drained of blood. In August of the same year, Madelyne Tolentino, a housewife from Canovanas, saw a strange two-legged animal with thin legs, with no nose and ears, red eyes and a crest of spines on its back. Shortly afterwards, the story began to rapidly spread, partly due to a local group of ufologists, and a veritable identikit of the creature was drawn, which was published by one of the Puerto Rican newspapers.

A reconstruction of the chupacabra. Credits: www.commons.wikimedia.org

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The chupacabra travels to the USA In several parts of Latin America stories of the legendary creature began to circulate, until a number of carcasses of alleged chupacabras were actually found in Texas. However, during the journey towards the USA, this animal's appearance had changed: the sightings spoke of a quadrupede with little or no fur and many characteristics in common with canids and other carnivores. The only remaining characteristic shared with the Puerto Rican chupacabra was the fact that it sucked the blood from its victims until they were drained of blood. After detailed analysis of the carcasses found, including DNA testing, it was discovered that they were common canids, but with diseases, such as mange, that made them unrecognisable to ordinary people since they had almost totally shed their fur.

Coyote suffering from mange. Credits: www.commons.wikimedia.org

Solution of the mystery of the chupacabra What had caused so many animals to be drained of blood and what was the strange creature seen in Puerto Rico? The only way to establish whether an animal has been drained of blood is by autopsy. The absence of blood at the scene of the predation and when making an incision into the tissues does not mean anything. In fact a wild predator can kill numerous farm animals without leaving any trace of blood, given that they may die of circulatory shock or due to internal injury. Not all the tissues of an animal that has been dead for several hours contain blood, because the blood collects by gravity in the lower parts of the corpse. No drainage of blood was detected in any of the autopsies conducted on the alleged victims of the beast. Therefore, the description of the crime scene is absolutely indistinguishable from that of predation by any other wild animal. It should be explained that, in 1995 in Puerto Rico, a daily newspaper, practically a scandal rag, had taken the story of the chupacabra to heart, and purposely exaggerating it, reporting every incident of the killing of farm animals and chickens and classifying them as unsolvable mysteries. Was the description by Mrs. Tolentino pure imagination? Madelyne Tolentino may not necessarily have lied to create a spoof story, but may have been mistaken in perfectly good faith, convinced that she was telling the truth. In psychology, this process is called confabulation, which consists of

Home / Life / Specials fanciful construction, inspired by any suggestion or question, of false memories referred to unreal situations or incidents. Benjamin Radford, a writer who has been investigating paranormal phenomena for many years, has a theory regarding this: according to him, in fact, the description made by Mrs. Tolentino was inspired by a science fiction film Species made in 1995. The creature in the film, called Sil, originated from a mixture of human and alien DNA and, incidentally, is very similar to the monster described. In 1996, Mrs. Tolentino stated that she had seen just that film before the sighting and that she was amazed by the similarity between the monster and the one she had seen in the film!

Following in the footsteps of Bigfoot The Bigfoot or Sasquatch is a legendary ape-like creature thought to live in the forests of North America. It seems that the majority of sightings of its presence arrive from the states of Washington and Oregon. There is no real proof of its existence other than photos, strange footprints and a video. The Bigfoot is said to be between 2 and 3 metres tall, with thick reddish black fur and large feet (hence its name) which are said to leave 43 cm long footprints on the ground. It is described as a biped hominid, with a human-like face and large eyes, and a lowered crest on its head. It seems to be without a neck and may weigh approximately 225 kg. Various theories have been put forward by the cryptozoological community. One of these speaks of unknown primates, alien creatures, megatheria (a species of extinct mammals including giant sloths) that have survived extinction. Already in the early 1900s an encounter with a violent and very strange brown bear was reported by two hunters. Later, this encounter was to be treated as one of the first encounters with a Bigfoot.

Reconstruction of a Bigfoot. Credits: www.commons.wikimedia.org

The anthropologist Gordon Strasenburgh and the primatologist John Napier have speculated that Bigfoots are hominids who have survived extinction, in particular either Paranthropus robustus or Australopithecus robustus (that is species of extinct hominid mammals, living between 2.3 and 1.2 million years ago). Against this theory, however, there are the remains of this family found only in southern Africa. Others think that the Bigfoot is related to the Tibetan yeti and to the Mongolian Almas. In the case of the yeti, there was a skull preserved in a Tibetan temple, which later proved to be

Home / Life / Specials false, while for this hairy creature, there are only videos deemed to be false. A film that is still talked about … On 20 October 1967, two hunters, Roger Patterson and Bob Glimin, shot one of the most incredible films of Bigfoot, which has been talked about for a long time. In the film, shot near Bluff Creek, a huge hairy biped can be seen, walking hesitantly, and turning towards the two men before disappearing into the forest. After many years, no one has yet ascertained whether or not the film is genuine. According to director John Landis, the film shows a man dressed up as Bigfoot, with a costume devised, according to him, by make-up master John Chambers, who won the Oscar for “The Planet of the Apes”. Bob Heironimus confessed that he wore a Bigfoot costume made by costume designer Philip Morris and sold to an amateur documentarist, Roger Patterson. Up until his death in 1972, Patterson always maintained that the film was authentic.

To see Patterson's film, click here

For and against Patterson's film Various attempts have been made to demonstrate that the film is genuine and as many have been made to demonstrate the opposite.

 For: journalist John Green was the first to claim that neither Patterson nor Gimilin had the means and the ability to make such an elaborate costume. Many special effects experts stated that at that time they would not have been able to reproduce anything like it. In effect, at the end of the 1960s in the field of special effects there were no cases of such plausible gorilla or ape-man costumes. Indeed, it would have been extremely difficult to reproduce a costume that allowed observation of the movement of the muscle fasciae under the skin with the means then available. Against: researcher Daniel Perez deems that in the 1966 film entitled “One million years BC” there were ape- men made up in a way very similar to the Bigfoot in the film.  For: the anthropologist Grover Krantz tried to establish the size of the creature by analysing the film, concluding that the size of the alleged Bigfoot did not correspond at all to that of a man: height 198 cm and a chest breadth of 46 cm. Against: another anthropologist, David J. Daegling, conducted research into the “Anthropometry Sourcebook” containing measurements of thousands of human beings belong to different populations and concluded with great sarcasm that If no human existed of the dimensions Krantz gives, then about 5% of members of the German Air Force were in need of zoological reclassification!  For: the film was also analysed by Jeff Glickman, a professional forensic examiner, specialised in graphic reconstructions and improvements. The results were that the creature must have been around 225 cm tall, weighing 816 kg and have a chest circumference of 210 cm, dimensions that are obviously incompatible with a human being wearing a costume. Against: to confute this theory, it was simply demonstrated that it is impossible to deduce dimensional data from a film for which there are not certain data. Estimates may vary a great deal if the object to be measured and the calibrating object are out of shot of the film camera and based on the optical axis of the film camera.  Even the gait of the Bigfoot in Patterson's film has been examined in very great detail. Were the movements of the creature easy to be imitated by a man too?  For: Dr. Daniel Schmitt of Duke University, expert in human locomotion, has suggested that the creature in the film has a gait characteristic of anthropoid apes when they walk erect and of earlier hominids than Homo erectus. A man would be able to imitate such a gait, but it would require considerable muscle strain that would

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tire him after one or two minutes. Against: nel 1971 il dott. D.W. in 1971, Dr. D.W. Grieve, expert in biomechanics, focussed on the speed at which the film had been shot. If the film was shot at 16 or 18 frames per second, Bigfoot's movements were similar to those of a man imitating a fast walk moving in slow motion, possible only for a creature with a very different metabolism and neuromuscular system to those of humans. If on the contrary, it was shot at 24 frames per second, the film shows a man walking fast. The film camera used by Patterson was able to record at two speeds, both at 16 and at 24 fps. At that time, the 16 fps mode was generally used for amateur filming, while the 24 fps mode was used for documentaries so that they could be shown on television. Initially, Patterson said that he had shot the film at 24 fps, but after Grieve's statement, he said that he could not remember the speed used to film Bigfoot, since he had picked up the camera in a hurry during the unexpected sighting and that this perhaps this may have inadvertently changed the settings. In reality, changing the speed setting of the film camera used by Patterson, requires precise movements that could only be accomplished involuntarily by clumsily shaking the camera.  For: why would Patterson have made things difficult for himself by reconstructing a female Bigfoot complete with breasts which would make the costume even more complicated?  Against: One year before shooting the film, Patterson had written a book on the existence of an abominable snowman and had illustrated it himself. Coincidentally, in this book there is a reconstruction of a female Bigfoot with the same characteristics as the one in the film, both from the postural and physical point of view!

When legendary creatures become new species … In 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator of the East London Museum in South Africa, started examining the catch of some local fishermen in search of unusual marine animals. It was thus that she found a truly strange blue fish, caught by some shark fishermen in the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Chalumna River. When she returned to the museum, she realised that she was unable to classify it and so she asked help from a colleague, Professor James Leonard Brierley Smith. The fish was embalmed and identified by Smith as a Coelacanth, a genus until then known only from fossil remains. The species was called Latimeria chalumnae after the researcher who discovered it and and the area where it was caught. A worldwide hunt then began to find new specimens of the Coelacanth with a prize of 100 pounds sterling, a considerable sum at that time for African fishermen. In 1952 another specimen was found in the Comoro Islands. Initially, it was thought that this was another rare find, but then it was discovered that the inhabitants of the Comoro Islands were very familiar with the fish, which they called gombessa or mame. This fish, in fact, every now and again was found in the fishermen's nets, but had no economical value for them, since its scales secrete mucus and its body discharges oil which, since it is laxative, make the fish uneatable, unless it is dried and salted. At first, this fish was classified as another species, but it was then understood that the lack of a dorsal fin of the specimen was due simply to an accident that had occurred when it was young.

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A Coelacanth

In 1997, during their honeymoon in Indonesia, Arnaz and Mark Erdmann came across a fish that seemed to be a gombessa but was brown instead of blue, at the market in Manado Tua on the island of Sulawesi. They published the photo of the fish on the Internet and it was noted by an expert who later conducted DNA tests on another fish of the same species. It was thus discovered that the species, called Rajah laut (king of the sea) by the local Indonesian population, was not the same as the Comoro Coelacanth: the new species was named Latimeria menadoensis.

by Tiziana Bosco

Sources www.criptozoo.com