International Cryptozoology Museum fundraiser t-shirts

The International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine has outgrown its modest digs in the back of Green Hand Books and is moving to big new location nearby. To help with the move and build-out of the new space, the Museum is launching a fundraiser. A $30 donation scores you a Museum t-shirt featuring a Coelacanth, Bigfoot, or Main's favorite sea serpent Cassie. "Order Cassie Sea Serpent Tees, Help ICM Move"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Brainspore

I’ve always wondered how the Coelacanth feels about being lumped in with those guys.
David Pescovitz

Probably just happy that he’s celebrity enough to be on a t-shirt.
AbleBakerCharlie

I like the shirts- but I’m always cracked up when cryptid hunters use the coelacanth as cover or justification for their whole field of inquiry- seventy years ago, a fisherman bothered to show a funky looking fish to a biologist instead of eating it, as had likely happened for a thousand years, and it turned out to taxonomically be pretty interesting, even if it just looked like a bony fish- ergo a small Scottish lake has maintained an undetectable population of pleisosaurs.
- Brainspore
  
  Yep, and an extant non-human hominid living in the forests of North America would have a considerably more difficult time avoiding notice than one more species of fish in the deep blue sea. I’m definitely still gonna visit the museum if I ever make it to Maine, though.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Yep, and an extant non-human hominid living in the forests of North America would have a considerably more difficult time avoiding notice than one more species of fish in the deep blue sea.
    
    Have you been to Northern California/the Pacific Northwest? There could be a lost cities and pyramids there.
    - Brainspore
      
      Have you been to Northern California/the Pacific Northwest?
      
      Yep. Once, when we thought we were miles from any other human beings, my then-girlfriend and I were surprised by a forest service helicopter coming over a nearby ridge just as we were engaging in a personal act that is probably still illegal in some states. Suffice it to say there is likely a photo of us on a bulletin board somewhere that is of higher image quality than most Sasquatch sightings.
      
      Of course it’s possible that there’s an entire species of hominids out there who are better at staying hidden than we were, and who also managed to migrate all the way from Africa to North America and live out countless generations without leaving a single shred of physical evidence in the path of their human cousins. I just don’t find it likely. However if such a species is ever discovered I’ll be the first to applaud the people who tracked it down.
    - fnarf
      
      I live here. No lost cities, no pyramids. The bigfoot fraudsters always ignore the basic facts of biology, such as minimum viable population and genetic diversity. They speculate about the existence of ONE bigfoot, but one bigfoot isn’t anything; a species can’t survive with one individual, or fifty. The MVP of bigfoot would probably be at least a few hundred. There are not a few hundred unknown hominids loose in the Cascades — though you might be forgiven if you mistook some of the voters in Clark County for one.
Eileen Burk

The museum is fantastic! The creator, Loren Coleman, takes visitors on a personal tour while explaining that many foreign animals, like Pandas and yes, the Coleacanth, were once considered cyptids. He presents the history of popular myths while debunking hoaxes and maintaining the allure of unsolved mysteries. A true cryptologist, like Loren Coleman, is not a gullible fool but a scrutinizing naturalist that believes great mysteries still lie hidden among us. Truly a hidden gem of Portland (the first)!

The museum currently resides in some cramped quarters within a second-hand bookstore and could certainly use some room to expand.
vsmith

“or Main’s favorite sea serpent Cassie.” Surely you mean “Maine” where Portland is located? Yes, I correct the spelling on menus featuring “Main lobster” saying I’d prefer one of the lesser ones!