Cryptozoology

[Chris Scott]

Having chatted with a couple of folks in the chat room, I thought it might be worth starting a thread to discuss the whole area of cryptozoology. Such creatures as
Nessie, Champ etc
Bigfoot, Yeti etc
Jersey Devil
Chupacabra
etc etc
Ive been looking around at some of the video and photographs out there and although some are, in my opinion, hoaxes (and some not very good ones!) or misidentifications, some of them are intriguing, especially a picture of what is claimed to be chupacabra among a herd of pigs.
One of the weirdest Ive seen recently is the so called "gnome" of Argentina - anyone else seen this?
Let's get some crypto chat going:-)
Chris Scott

[Chris Scott]

A still and video of the "gnome" can be seen at

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/weird/article1817406.ece

[George Hutchinson]

Would this include the case of the Surrey Puma, Chris?

The village/parish where I was brought up had, in 1994, a puma they called The Beast of Tweseldown (the forest area across the road from the family home). My dad saw it in the garden in the early hours one night. Black, dog sized, cat face and a long thick tail. We found footprints of it on a table in the garden a few weeks later. Could have been a fox but a bit too big for that.

Then, last year, we had another scare at Worplesdon (between Guildford and Woking) and I actually saw it myself from a moving train at about 5pm. It was about 100 yards away, running through scrubland. Same description as my dad's, but it was moving very fast and low to the ground, not bounding as a dog would be.

PHILIP

[Chris Scott]

Hi Philip
The Surrey puma was current to me when in my teens as I am Surrey born and bred (near Reigate)
There were alleged sightings in the 60s in the area of Reigate Heath and Banstead but I never saw the beastie personally. The only time I have seen anything of whose identification I was not sure was on Dartmoor, where I used to spend all my holdays as a kid and into my teens, as I had family living in Tavistock
A cousin and I were out for a hike one day near Pew Tor, where there used to be an army camp. In the distance (at a rough guess about 300 yards away) we saw something large, catlike and dark, very dark. My cousin knew the moors like the back of his hand and all the wildlife normally encountered and this was like nothing he had ever seen before. The nearest I cana compare it to would be a black panther. It was fast, lean and BIG, much bigger than even the largest domestic moggie. Admittedly we saw it for five seconds at the most and it was gone.
Regards
Chris

[sdreid]

I was just thinking about COHOMO (the COle HOllow MOnster) when I found myself on Cole Hollow Road Sunday. He was on the rampage about 25 years ago when there were something like 300 sightings but he's been keeping a low profile lately. The monster was 8 to 10 feet tall, covered with hair and left three toed tracks. Some of our local hunters were out after him back then but called off the search when one of them was shot by accident.

[Jon Guy]

Some of our local hunters were out after him back then but called off the search when one of them was shot by accident.

That`s the problem, Stan, "some of our local hunters".

I hope the injury was nothing trivial.

[sdreid]

Good news Jon - he pulled through.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Stan
The CoHoMo was a new one on me but Ive done a Google seearch and there is plenty to read on it - which I will be doing shortly
Thanks for the lead
Chris

[Ally]

Hi Chris,

My best friend and I were going on a Champ hunt in Sept but her plane got grounded in Philadelphia so I ended up having to look for strange wildlife in Southeast Philly. There be plenty there. Too bad, because I was going to snap the picture that proved it. So Champ remains elusive still...

[sdreid]

One correction - the Cohomo sightings were more like 35 years ago.

[Jeff Leahy]

Kent Big Cats

Hi Chris

Just a quick post because this is a subject that has interested me for sometime.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kol08/article/default.asp?article_id=45997

I gave some discussion to a series of programs on 'Kent Invaders'

Certainly the big cat story is of interest, as was the 'Giant Hog Weed'.

The story that has always interested me however, is 'Big Foot', I saw some serious scientific research on this and its interesting..If you see one near Ramsgate let me know

If I find any Mountain Lions or Panthers on my travels, shall I post pics here or Diddles thread?

Pirate

PS I gather you now have scorpions down there in Ramsgate

[Mike Covell]

In Hull some time ago we had "LITTLE DOUG"

Here is a thread I prepared on the Hull Daily Mail website "Yoursay",

http://www.thisisyourmail.co.uk/posts/all_yours/view/22270-little-doug-fortean-phenomena-or-fake-

I was fortunate to recieve a little book all about "LITTLE DOUG", from a gentleman who worked on the display area for it!!

We also have a "Mermaid" held in the Hull Maritime Museum, but after X-Ray's it proved to be full of wire and fish bone!

On the edge of Hull we have a similar Big Cat to the one's mentioned above, and it appears to be a black puma. Several independant witnesses have spotted the animal, and recently someone got in touch with me to say they had seen something of interest. They described it as a large black labrador, but with feline features, and cats tail!!

[George Hutchinson]

Actually, Chris, now I come to think of it it was indeed more panther-sized than puma (at least the one I saw was).

I watched that 'gnome' footage. No idea what the cause is but it was scary as Hell to see! Just this black shape moving towards the group far quicker than it looked like it should have done. Ugh.

PHILIP

[Mike Covell]

I watched that 'gnome' footage. No idea what the cause is but it was scary as Hell to see! Just this black shape moving towards the group far quicker than it looked like it should have done. Ugh.

PHILIP

It was a Baphomet Idol on string!!

[steje73]

It was Grimble Gromble quite clearly having a big adventure.