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Cryptid Tourism and the Performance of Monster-Hunting

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Cryptid Tourism and the Performance of Monster-Hunting Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 6-18-2021 The Cryptid Tourist Gaze: Cryptid Tourism and the Performance of Monster-Hunting Sara Brooke Christian Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Christian, Sara Brooke, "The Cryptid Tourist Gaze: Cryptid Tourism and the Performance of Monster- Hunting" (2021). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 5566. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/5566 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE CRYPTID TOURIST GAZE: CRYPTID TOURISM AND THE PERFORMANCE OF MONSTER-HUNTING A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The School of Theatre by Sara Brooke Christian B.A., Vanguard University, 2011 M.A., Texas State University, 2016 August 2021 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very happy to be writing my acknowledgments because it means that this is nearly over. Working on the longest and most important project of your life is challenging. I had the added bonus of trying to write this during a global pandemic. Thankfully, I was able to accomplish everything I needed to in order to finish this dissertation. Of course, I did not do it alone. I would not have been able to do this without my advisor Alan Sikes. His encouragement, confidence, and kindness helped me every step of the way. My time at LSU would not have been successful without the support and offered knowledge of my professors. Alan Sikes, John Fletcher, Shannon Walsh, and Femi Euba demonstrated what caring professors should look like. A huge thank you to my committee members Mari and Bradley. I owe thanks to other members of the department including Isaac Pletcher, who was always a great mentor, boss, and friend to me during my time working with him in the film department. I also have to thank Kristin Sosnowsky for her support over the years and Ferris Peters for helping me every time I walked into the front office with a question or concern. My fellow PhD students made my graduate school experience at LSU so much better. Through our classes, creative projects, and academic conferences Kyra, Aaron, Katie, Ben, Simi, Anna, Colleen, Adrianna, and Rachel challenged and encouraged me to be better. My dissertation would not have been completed without the help of my awesome research assistants Katie Morris and Sophia Brazda. Both of these amazing and intelligent people accompanied me on my research trips over the course of this project. They helped me more than they will ever know and I am so thankful for their friendship and company on the road. Another set of research assistants I have to acknowledge is my parents, who came along for the ride on ii my research trip through California and Oregon. I am very lucky to have such supportive and enthusiastic parents, who are now just as invested in the cryptid world as I am. A special shout out to my friend Riley. Our weekly Monday night zoom sessions helped me stay focused and excited about my topic. May we continue to consume spooky content together for years to come. Of course, I cannot write any set of acknowledgements regarding my time at LSU without mentioning Mike, Sophia, Tessa, Zoey, Johnny, Emily, Lilo, and Glenn. Working with you all over the years was my greatest accomplishment and most treasured memory. Thank you to every family member and friend who encouraged me along the way. The only reason I finished was because of the tremendous amount of support I received from my family, especially my grandparents. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………ii HISTORICAL TIMELINE………………………………..……………………………………...v ABSTRACT………………………………………...……………………………………………vi INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………….…..1 CHAPTER 1. CRYPTOZOOLOGY 101 AND THE CRYPTID TOURIST GAZE….……..….35 CHAPTER 2. EXPEDITION AND EXHIBITION……………………………….…….…..…...58 CHAPTER 3. THE MOTHMAN CASE FILE………………………………………………......96 CHAPTER 4. THE SASQUATCH CASE FILE…………………………………..…….……..134 CHAPTER 5. THE WIDE WORLD OF CRYPTIDS CASE FILES…………………..………193 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………....233 WORK CITED………………………………………………………………………………….240 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………248 iv HISTORICAL TIMELINE Year Event 1300 BC Fossils are found in Qua, Egypt 700 BC Griffins become a popular motif in Greece 800 BC Monster of Troy myth first written down 500 BC Plato’s lifetime (429-347) Herodotus (484-425) 400 BC Aristotle’s lifetime (384-322) Alexander the Great’s lifetime (356-323) Greeks first learn about Elephants 31 BC Roman Empire 31 BC-450 AD AD 1 Pliny the Elder’s writings Centaur remains are displayed in Rome Skulls of dragons are displayed in India AD 100 Fossil of Mastodons of Somos (Greek island) recognized as elephant AD 500 Giant bones are displayed in Constantinople AD 700-800 Liber Monstrorum is circulated 1500s Oreido's Natural History of the West Indies is written 1600s Thomas Browne (1605-1682) publishes a compendium called Pseudodoxia 1781 George Clark collects a large fossil tooth, Mastadon americanum 1797 Jefferson presents a scientific paper about his research on Megalonyx 1801 Charles Willson Peale purchases a set of bones and teeth found in New York. 1803-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition is underway 1827 Barnum purchases Peale's natural history museum after Peale's death 1833 The first use of the term professional scientist as a title is first used 1840s Barnum opens Barnum's American Museum Feejee Mermaid hoax is displayed by Barnum 1859 On the Origin of Species is published. 1874 Cavendish Laboratory opens at the University of Cambridge 1912 The Lost Word by Sir Arthur Conon Doyle is published 1931 King Kong movie is released 1954 Creature From the Black Lagoon is released 1950 The term Bigfoot is coined after large footprints are found in Northern California 1966 First official sighting of the Mothman in Point Pleasant TNT Area 1967 Paterson-Gimlin film a suspected Sasquatch in Bluff Creek, California 1967 The Silver Bridge collapses in Point Pleasant, West Virginia 1971 Fouke Monster terrorizes the Ford property in Fouke, Arkansas 1972 MoMo, The Missouri Monster is first reported in Louisiana, Missouri v ABSTRACT The Cryptid Tourist Gaze: Cryptid Tourism and the Performance of Monster-Hunting examines different modes of monster-hunting and argues that the ways of hunting for monsters has evolved from major expeditions to cryptid tourism. I devised an original term called the Cryptid Tourist Gaze in order to analyze these different monster-hunting modes. The Cryptid Tourist Gaze is an individual's perspective of and experience with a cryptid monster and reflects how an individual perceives and presents cryptid monsters and cryptid monster experiences. I suggest that individuals now perform monster-hunting through documentary media consumption, festival attendance, and museum curation and visitation, which are all forms of cryptid tourism. I refer to monster-hunting as the act of how an individual or community looks at, lives with, and searches for unexplained, unknown, or unnatural creatures, beasts, and animals and the Cryptid Tourist Gaze is a means by which those acts are performed. This Gaze informs their constructed consciousness of the phenomena of monster sightings and determines the structured reality of their experience of cryptid tourism. Thinking about how these cryptid monsters are presented and represented can lead us to a conversation about why people go looking for these cryptid monsters and how the belief in their existence is perpetuated. The Cryptid Tourist Gaze is a multifaceted concept that I believe sheds new light on monster-hunting and cryptid tourism. Cryptozoological research could lead to one of the most exciting discoveries in history. One of the ways we get closer to that discovery is through cryptid tourism and the performance of cryptid monster-hunting. vi INTRODUCTION A preserved specimen of a Triton was reportedly found and housed in the Temple of Dionysus in second century AD. “The triton body,” according to folk science specialist and ancient science historian Adrienne Mayor, “was most likely a counterfeit monster, produced to fill a gap between curiosity about never seen mythical creatures and natural knowledge in antiquity.”1 Fabrications like this, “grew out of the estrangement of philosophical inquiry from popular knowledge, but they also reveal the age-old human longing to bring to life creatures of lost worlds.”2 A fascination with the unknown has been a part of human culture for centuries and a specific subset of investigators is all too familiar with the muddled relationship of fact and fiction. Science and fantasy are far more intertwined in history than many people may realize. There is a space where science and fantasy converge, and monsters emerge, called cryptozoology. What in the world is cryptozoology? Is it real science or just a made-up term to satisfy our curiosity? Cryptozoology is the study of hidden and unknown animals. Cryptozoology investigates creatures that are not yet officially discovered by science, which is why it can sometimes be considered a pseudoscience. However, the association of certain unconfirmed animals with the term cryptozoology is contested, particularly among Bigfoot researchers. In an 1. Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000), 230. Mayor continues “...paleontological fabrications can have deeper and more positive meanings beyond mere deception. … Over a millennium of classical antiquity, widespread evidence accumulated to confirm that the world had once been populated by immense and strange creatures, just as the ancient myths described.” 2.
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