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Oddball Cryptids

ShadowPrime

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Aug 21, 2001
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Prompted largely by a small article in last month's FORTEAN TIMES, about two boys alleged encounter with a small, vaguely rabbit-like, vaguely rugby-ball shaped, somewhat bipedal, possibly telepathic creature... ;)

While I am certainly intrigued by the cryptozoological "big boys and girls", like Sasquatch, Yeti, Nessie, etc... I think the stories that MOST grab me involve folks seeing truly odd beasties without precedent... folks who have absolutely NO expectation that they will be believed, who have NO cultural reinforcement to either fuel their imagination or encourage them to come forward. TO put it another way...if you visit Loch Ness, odds are pretty good you have heard of Nessie... and odds are also good that you will be keeping your eyes open. If you see something, it is not unlikely that you will be tempted to evaluate what you see in the context of this being a body of water in which folks have reported a lake monster.

However, in the rare cases like the one I mention above... or in a case I dimly recall, where one or two policemen reported seeing some sort of weird "frog man" or "amphibian man"... or cases where folks have reported seeing huge kangaroos in the middle of America (zoo/circus escapees aside)... I find myself truly fascinated, because to come forward with a story like that, one would have to be either TRULY whacky, or TRULY desperate...or to have TRULY seen something. The very lack of cultural backing or support makes those reports especially intriguing, I think...

Would be interested to see what others here think... and would enjoy and appreciate any such cases my fellow Forteans might be aware of.. really strange and perhaps one-time sightings of cryptids...

Shadow
 
The one-shot cryptids are by far my favorite... Dover Demon, anyone? Probably a hoax, but it still fascinates me...
I remember one, from an old book I had (where I first learned of the Dover Demon), it mentioned some sort of vaguely kangaroo-ish creature, that was really aggressive. I *think* the sighting was in Kentucky or Tennessee... the book didn't have any pictures, so I don't really remember the description that well.
Damn, wish I still had that book...
 
one or two policemen reported seeing some sort of weird "frog man" or "amphibian man"
The case above is the fairly well documented "Loveland Frog":

http://www.xproject.net/archives/cryptozoology/lovelandfrog.html

http://www.parascope.com/en/cryptozoo/predators04.htm

http://home.fuse.net/tswendel/LFP.htm

How real the sightings were I dont know, although the name "Loveland" sounds suspiciously close to "Lovecraft" to me...

cases where folks have reported seeing huge kangaroos in the middle of America
You should go to http://www.cryptozoology.com and talk to a poster called Finbar, he seems to have something of an obsession with North American "kangaroos"...
 
Piscez said:
The one-shot cryptids are by far my favorite... Dover Demon, anyone? Probably a hoax, but it still fascinates me...
I remember one, from an old book I had (where I first learned of the Dover Demon), it mentioned some sort of vaguely kangaroo-ish creature, that was really aggressive. I *think* the sighting was in Kentucky or Tennessee... the book didn't have any pictures, so I don't really remember the description that well.
Damn, wish I still had that book...

Jerome Clark's UNEXPLAINED relates that at least one witness to the Dover Demon (which took place in Massachusetts) was of questionable repute. The only explanation offered was that the Dover Demon was a baby moose.

Here's a sketch of the Dover Demon taken from Clark's book, forgive the horrible webcam imagery:
 
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