For more than a century there have been reports of a strange sea "monster" living in Loch Ness yet hard evidence is, er, lacking. Now, evolutionary biologist Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago is hoping that DNA testing could perhaps shed some light on what people claim is Nessie. For two weeks, Gemmell and his team will collect skin and scale samples from Loch Ness and compare those DNA sequences against known animals. Here's what Gemmmell told the BBC News:

"I don't believe in the idea of a monster, but I'm open to the idea that there are things yet to be discovered and not fully understood. Maybe there's a biological explanation for some of the stories."

"While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness - the UK's largest freshwater body..."

"There is this idea that an ancient Jurassic Age reptile might be in Loch Ness. If we find any reptilian DNA sequences in Loch Ness, that would be surprising and would be very, very interesting."

Above, "The Surgeon's Photograph" of 1934, known to be a hoax. Read the rest

A resident of Santa Fe, Argentina snapped this photo of a horrific beast that allegedly is killing dogs in the town. It's said to be 7-feet-tall and resemble a cross between a horse and El Chupacabra. YouTube channel UFOmania reported on the creature so perhaps the most reasonable explanation is that it's an evil extraterrestrial that hates doggos.

(iHeartRadio via Fark) Read the rest

Over the weekend, Jeff Warren and his family spotted this mysterious sea monster washed up on the shore of the Wolf Island National Wildlife Refuge near Darien, Georgia. It is either:

• Altamaha-ha (aka Alty), a cryptid, said to live near the mouth of the Altamaha river, that reportedly looks very similar to what's in the photo

• A frilled shark, according to a marine science educator at the Tybee Island Marine Science Center

• A basking shark, in the opinion of a Savannah State University marine scientist

• Or a hoax, according to scientists at Georgia Southern University.

Either way, the story ends well.

“My son, who is twelve, thinks it is the child of the legendary Altamaha-ha and has now decided he wants to be a marine biologist,” Warren said.

(Savannah Morning News) Read the rest

In 1997, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded "the bloop," a one-minute sound emanating 1,500 miles west of Chile's southern coast. The unexplained sound was never recorded again. Read the rest

This video and the photos below reportedly depict a 60-foot dragon skeleton unearthed in the city of Zhangjiakou in Northern China's Hebei province. Some observers insist it's a hoax, but we know better. From Mysterious Universe:

A translation of the story at wukong.com says the skeleton measured about 60 feet long with a horned skull and two tiny arms at the neck-body joint. The long thin serpentine body matches the Chinese version of dragons rather than the Game of Thrones or flying lizard types.

However, the skull seems more like an antelope and some witnesses thought the bones looked like they were from multiple cows and pieced together to fool the public or be used in a movie or TV show.

Read the rest

In Alor Setar, Malaysia, married couple Zul Hanif Anip, 25, and his wife Puteri shot this video of a strange slithering creature emerging from their toilet. Anip insists that it didn't look anything like any snake he'd ever seen. He claims they captured the creature and release it into the river.

"I think the creature grew up inside the pipe works connected to the toilet hole, because I have checked and there is no entry point for it to have got inside," Anip said. "He was about two meters [6.5 feet] long with a very fat, thick body. I'm not sure if it was a snake or a kind of tidal creature or from the swamp.

"Its head was very small and it had a short tail, which did not look like a snake."

(UPI)

Read the rest

Sea Monster YouTube is the best YouTube.

SPOILER: It's just a jellyfish. But is it gold or blue? Read the rest

Loch Ness Monster researcher Mikko Takala presents Nessie on the Net livestreams from cameras on Scotland's famed loch. Did I just see a tree branch or was it a plesiosaur?

Remember, what you're seeking may look something like this, the hoaxed "Surgeon's photograph" (1934):

Read the rest

The South Carolina Emergency Management Division warned eclipse watchers to be on the lookout for lizard men during the astronomical event.

Regarding possible paranormal activity potentially occurring during the #SolarEclipse2017. As always, if you see something, say something. pic.twitter.com/O3IuYhHzqB

— SCEMD (@SCEMD) August 9, 2017

"Obviously this was done very tongue-in-cheek," the middle-aged co-anchor solemnly explained to his young female colleague, who was until that point having fun with the segment.

Read the rest

Self-described "shaman" Gawain MacGregor says that he was the creature that bigfoot investigators claim to have encountered last week in North Carolina's Pisgah National Park. MacGregor, 36, who believes in "the divine nature of sasquatch" was dressed in animal skins as part of a ritual involving his wandering around the woods reciting a "sasquatch prayer."

"It feels like it brings me closer to nature," MacGregor told the BBC News.

But Bigfoot 911's John Bruner insists that it wasn't MacGregor, or any human, that his team spotted:

Read the rest

Someone in Azerbaijan uploaded this weird clip of a hirsuit humanoid creature. At Mysterious Universe, Paul Seaburn writes:

An interesting possibility is the Meshe Adam or Ağac Kişi, which means tree man or forest man. This is believed to be a spirit that takes the shape of an apelike hairy creature with a human face... Another option mentioned by the Cryptomundo website is the Almas or Wild Man in Mongolian.

All that said, Seaburn puts his money on a monkey in a costume. However my bet is that it's one of Cha-Ka's cousins.

Read the rest

The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department posted images of mysterious large footprints reportedly spotted at parks and trails just north of Austin, Texas. Is this Bigfoot or a marketing stunt?

"I'm leaning towards not real at least on the top one," area Bigfoot researcher Russell Miller told the Houston Chronicle. "Too narrow at the instep."

And, of course, if the "surveillance" camera was capable of capturing the footprints, why didn't it get a shot of the (ahem) "cryptid" that made them?

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Our Park Ranger surveillance has captured strange footprints at various parks & trails in the area. If you find these,...

Posted by Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department on Saturday, June 10, 2017

Jake Gardiner was walking in the woods in the foothills of La Crescenta, a suburb of Los Angeles, when he heard rustling in the trees. He recorded video on his mobile phone and later noticed what many are saying looks like an ape-like creature swinging around the branches.

“It could be some kind of ape, it also could be a bear, it could be a large bird,” says Andrew Hughan, a spokesman with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

He added that it could be someone's pet but it's difficult to say based on the blurry video and lack of physical evidence.

“It’s an interesting mystery right at the moment, and we'll see what happens," he says.

(Los Angeles Times)

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A fellow named Alain Ducas posted video that he says he shot in Bangor, Maine from the roof of the Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway Bangor overlooking the Penobscot River. I don't think that's a new river cryptid though. More likely it's the Loch Ness Monster on vacation in Maine. After all, Nessie hasn't been spotted in her Scotland home since May 7 when the video below was captured. That said, the Penobscot River Monster could just as easily be Champ, the monster residing in Lake Champlain. (Mysterious Universe)

The new Penobscot River Monster video is very similar to the Olsen Champ video of 2009.https://t.co/gqlVesQlHU

Here's a 2009 screen grab. pic.twitter.com/NKxCKL2WTV

— Loren Coleman (@CryptoLoren) May 11, 2017

Read the rest

Gallup, New Mexico state senator George Munoz is not pleased that a group led by Christopher Dyer, CEO of University New Mexico's Gallup campus, went on a Bigfoot research expedition and racked up $7,000 of expenses that were ultimately paid by taxpayers. The expedition was part of a Bigfoot conference Dyer organized on campus last year that he says "was the largest and most well-attended event in the history of this campus,”.

From KRQE:

In response to what happened, Sen. George Munoz is sponsoring a bill that would ban public funds from being spent on “looking for or catching a fictitious creature.”

“It’s sad that we have to do this, that they don’t have the ethics, that UNM doesn’t have the ethics to stop this,” Sen. Munoz said. “And now we have to draft bills to stop something that is not morally right,” Sen. Munoz said.

The senator had a little fun with the bill. It also bans publicly funded searches for Pokemon, leprechauns and the Bogeyman.

Read the rest

Steve Feltham has been camped at Loch Ness for 25 years keeping a constant vigil for Nessie. He seems like a delightful happy mutant doing exactly what he wants with his life.

"Some people think it's a giant eel," Feltham says. "Some people think there's a rip in time. Others believe there's a spaceship on the bottom of the Loch. It's more likely to turn out to be a big catfish."

Read the rest

Scott C. Waring, an expert "alien hunter," located the fossilized remains of a curly-haired grizzly bear in a recently released batch of NASA photos of Mars. The discovery is both "unusual and interesting," he told the Daily Star.

“The dark patch is the curly hair coat and its face area has significantly less hair.

"Its two front teeth are extremely white, unlike any other color on the creature.

“I have to say it’s a fossil because of its hair and teeth.”

I think it's a just a plain old calot, but what do I know? Read the rest