Inside Loren Coleman's Cryptozoology Museum

Our pal Loren Coleman's Portland, Maine home-office doubles as the International Cryptozoology Museum, a literal cabinet of curiosities devoted to "hidden animals" and oddities related to his Fortean passions. The Lewiston Sun Journal's Kathryn Skelton paid a visit to the museum and documented the experience with a wonderful article, photos, and audio clips. From the article (photo by Amber Waterman):

Sometime next spring, Loren Coleman's getting a 12-foot-long replica of Canada's Ogopogo lake monster. It'll probably have to stay on the porch, near his 8.5-foot-tall, oxen-haired Bigfoot.

Coleman is a little pressed for space indoors. There's already a 9-foot latex pterodactyl camouflaged by an avocado tree and a cabinet of skulls with surly looking cuspids in the living room.

The International Cryptozoology Museum runneth over.

He's tried to contain it, so far, to a single floor in his Portland home, and it makes for a sort of cryptid wild kingdom. There's a busy brick wall in particular that TV and documentary crews love to pose him against when he talks about sea serpents and Bigfoots and Dover Demons.

Link to Sun Journal article, Link to Cryptozoology Museum, Link to Loren's clarifications and artists' credits at Cryptomundo

• [neven]

  From the clarification page:

  “A cast of Bigfoot prints that are believed to be real.”

  Or, more correctly, “…believed to be real by total dopes.”

• [Peterus]

  Penn & Teller made pretty interesting show on cryptozoology (If you can swallow harsh Penn’s language).

• [dculberson]

  Grammar suggestion:

  The sentence “Our pal Loren Coleman’s Portland, Maine doubles as the International Cryptozoology Museum,” appears to be missing the word “home” after Maine.

• [cryptid]

  Wht jk.
  ll ths gy ds s sk fr mny nd pst thr ppl strs n hs wbpg.
  srch n ggl rght nw nd s hw h hs plstrd hs sb stry ll vr th wb skng fr mny.
  nd s fr th msm.. gt rl.. try fndng th ddrss t hs hs/msm.

  Ths ll s h cld cntn t d nthng nd gt tx brks fr t. nc try.

  ls ts my ndrstndng tht RL cryptzlgsts ctlly d rl fld wrk.
  whn ws th lst tm h dd tht? vr?
  srry, bt pstng thr sts clps nd wrtng bks bt thr ppls stds ds nt cryptzlgst mk y ;)
  Tm t grw p nd qt bggng ppl fr mny nd gt rl jb.

• [Loren Coleman]

  The reporter got it right. Those two footcasts were taken by Washington State law enforcement officers who had just seen the Bigfoot cross the road in front of them. The casts, therefore, were accepted by them to represent the tracks of a Bigfoot. I display them as such.

  Nothing more, nothing less.

  Cryptozoologists are natural skeptics, although that is little understood by debunkers.

• [Kirsten]

  So…jealous….