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Weird Animals Often Seen In Antarctica

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Anonymous

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I heard there are reports that recently dead bodies of huge, white, human-like-shaped, unknown animals have been often seen floating in The Antarctic Sea. And it is said that governments of some countries are already conducting covert researches into it.
People who have actually seen them say those were definitely NOT artificial things, icebergs, dead whales, or so.
However, there have not been any decisive and persuasive substantial evidence which can proves the existence of those mysterious animals around the southern pole.
If you have heard of the same kind of story, if you know Web pages containing the similar story, or if you acutually have seen those unkown animals, please tell me.
 
I might be being excessively cynical, but perhaps this is the pre-publicity campaign for del Toro's version of At The Mountains of Madness adaptation getting underway?

(OK, so there aren't any "huge, white, human-like-shaped" things in Lovecraft's ATMoM, but who knows what we'll find in the movie...)
 
I wonder if there are any witness sketches of these supposed crytids. The "huge, white" thing makes me think of the collosal squid.
 
Zygon said:
I might be being excessively cynical, but perhaps this is the pre-publicity campaign for del Toro's version of At The Mountains of Madness adaptation getting underway?
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I second that!

Seems to be an awful lot of spoof Antartica stuff about at the moment! :p
 
Zygon said:
...del Toro's version of At The Mountains of Madness adaptation...
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Oh crap. "Version...adaptation"?? Christ, I've turned illiterate in my sleep. My life is over. I'm off to stick me head in the oven. :(
 
Wring of the planet but...

It reminded me a bit of James Morrow's very strange novel 'Towing Jehovah.'

God is dead.... Van Horne--whose captaincy of a mammoth oil tanker during an Exxon Valdez -type spill has left him unemployed, estranged from his family and suffering nightmares--is hired by the Vatican to pilot his former vessel as it tows the Supreme Being (found dead of unknown causes) to a tomb in the Arctic that His angels have built for Him.
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Sounds like Pravda warming over Poe's 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym'...
 
There are some similarities with this difficult to pin down news:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12870

And looking for stuff on this I found something that might be significant there.

My guess some attempt at viral hype for a film or a misidentification of some seal corspes or globsters? Either way though I can't find anything online which may mean diddley but it may be another example of FT being ahead of the curve - keep watching the skies (although that was set in the Arctic and it isn't sky related at all but.....).

Emps
 
Mountains of Madness? Del Toro? Eh? Lawks.

I would suggest a publicity hybrid of the above and The Whisperer in Darkness, which starts with mention of a hideous cryptid body glimpsed washed downstream in a flood.
 
That was definately non humanoid in TWID. Maybe 'The Shunned House' but it does reflect Poe more than Lovecraft....

But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow.
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Maybe a I'm a bit picky but the title - Weird Animals Often Seen In Antarctica - Is there anything in antartica that could possibly be considered "often seen" ???
 
Tekeli Li! Tekeli Li!

That giant penguin from Florida! It's back! And it didn't even exist in the first place!
 
Towing Jehovah was quite good, dragged a bit in places but some nice ideas.

Can't believe someone's attempting to make a film of ATMOM, plenty of Lovecraft adaptations around and I can't think of one decent one unless you count maybe the short of Cool Air.

Well I suppose it can't be as bad as Cthulhu Mansion:rolleyes:
 
That would be the 'Night Gallery' version with Henry 'Manolito' Darrow as Dr Munoz?

And I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I'm the only person in Christendom, and possibly the Islamic world to have read Poe.... :mad:
 
Hugo Cornwall said:
That would be the 'Night Gallery' version with Henry 'Manolito' Darrow as Dr Munoz?

And I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I'm the only person in Christendom, and possibly the Islamic world to have read Poe.... :mad:
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Nope, you are not. I love Poe enough to have fits every time someone mentions him as a horror writer. BTW., a great Latin writer who was a Poe admirer was Jorge Luis Borges, give it a try if you have the time.
 
I have read some Jorge Luis Borges, and quite enjoyed it. At the risk being called a prole, his 'The Book of Imaginary Beings' is a favourite of my bedside :)
 
I`ve read Poe and did a school essay on him for my final exam.
 
Hugo Cornwall said:
I have read some Jorge Luis Borges, and quite enjoyed it. At the risk being called a prole, his 'The Book of Imaginary Beings' is a favourite of my bedside :)
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I love that one also. I lost it, I think, somewhere between Atlanta, GA, or New York. I spent a month drawing the creatures in that book when I was a kid. I still have my Squonk drawing somewhere, I think. But the most endearing creature for me is the first one in the book, the abao-a quk, iirc, the one who grasps the feet of people in the stairs, and can only be able to be fully formed when a perfect individual goes to the top of the tower, remember? I also remember Odradek, and many others. That´s a great book.
 
It reminded me a bit of James Morrow's very strange novel 'Towing Jehovah.'
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Timble, thank you. Exactly what I was going to say...'cept what was God doing in the Antarctic when He passed away? :)

Polterdog.
 
I was delighted to read Imaginary Beings way back when, and even more amused to find some of the tales that Borges foudn them in. Has anyone else read Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John tales? I think the Squonk is in one of them, maybe The Desrick on Yandrow. I do recall the Hidebehind is in that story.
 
Onix said:
...a great Latin writer who was a Poe admirer was Jorge Luis Borges, give it a try if you have the time.
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And the Brazilian author Machado de Assis is often cited as an inspiration of Borges. The Devil’s Church and Other Stories is well worth hunting down and many of the stories have a Fortean inclination. The following quote is from The Bonze’s Secret concerning the non-existence of a legendary precious stone.

“I considered the case and realised that if something can exist in opinion without existing in reality, or exist in reality without existing in opinion, the conclusion is that of the two parallel lives only opinion is necessary - not reality, which is only a secondary consideration.”

Now it might just be me but doesn’t that sound like something old Charlie might have said himself?

Dragging this thread slightly closer to its original subject Francis Spufford’s book I May Be Some Time would be relevant to anyone interested in our cultural obsession with the Poles. Poe gets mentioned as does Mary Shelley who I think may have been the first popular author to use the icy wates of the Poles as a backdrop for exploring our innermost fears. (And yes, I do know I’m lumping both North and South Poles together).

On checking the index to see if by any chance Borges got a mention all Spufford’s book came up with was Borges observation that British and Argentinian conflict over the Falklands was like “two bald men fighting over a comb.” I quite like that.
 
Spook said:
Poe gets mentioned as does Mary Shelley who I think may have been the first popular author to use the icy wates of the Poles as a backdrop for exploring our innermost fears.
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Sorry, I'm talking bollocks! Coleridge's Ancient Mariner must have come before Frankenstein. Not sure if there are any earlier examples.
 
Spook said:
And the Brazilian author Machado de Assis is often cited as an inspiration of Borges. The Devil’s Church and Other Stories is well worth hunting down and many of the stories have a Fortean inclination. The following quote is from The Bonze’s Secret concerning the non-existence of a legendary precious stone.

“I considered the case and realised that if something can exist in opinion without existing in reality, or exist in reality without existing in opinion, the conclusion is that of the two parallel lives only opinion is necessary - not reality, which is only a secondary consideration.”

Now it might just be me but doesn’t that sound like something old Charlie might have said himself?

Dragging this thread slightly closer to its original subject Francis Spufford’s book I May Be Some Time would be relevant to anyone interested in our cultural obsession with the Poles. Poe gets mentioned as does Mary Shelley who I think may have been the first popular author to use the icy wates of the Poles as a backdrop for exploring our innermost fears. (And yes, I do know I’m lumping both North and South Poles together).

On checking the index to see if by any chance Borges got a mention all Spufford’s book came up with was Borges observation that British and Argentinian conflict over the Falklands was like “two bald men fighting over a comb.” I quite like that.
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Thanks for the info on that Brazilian writer. I'll try and find out more about him.l
 
When was Antarctica last free of ice?

When was Antarctica last free of ice? I haven't been able to find a good answer on the web. I know it was quite warm in the Jurrassic, but I don't think it froze solid until much later. I'm sure I have seen pictures of desicated animals in the dry valleys which must hava lived when there ws more vegitation. Any one know more about the real natural history?
 
I think the last ice-free episode was about 50.000 years ago.
 
Xanatic said:
I think the last ice-free episode was about 50.000 years ago.
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That's fairly recent then (in geological terms). Modern humans had evolved by that time. I think the last Ice Age in the northern hemisphere was about 10,000 year ago.
 
Antarctica has not been ice free in potentially millions of years - I'm pretty sure there are ice cores which go back at least half a million years. 50,000 years ago was in the middle of the Wurm glaciation and it would have been more ice covered than now - which is one of the warmest periods in the Pleistocene (so the current ice cover is possible the least it has been in millions of years) - it might have been slightly less covered during the Eemian (120,000 years ago) which was slightly warmer than now but for it to have been ice free would have involved it being closer to the Equator which clear involves plate tectonics (unless you want to follow the idea of Earth Crust Displacement I suppose) so you might be looking back to the period following the breakup of Gondwanaland. This is where the coal and dinosaur deposits come from.

Nice resource here:

http://www.secretsoftheice.org/explore/past.html

which says:

About 160 million years ago this giant land mass began to break apart and newly formed individual land masses gradually drifted to their present locations around the globe. Antarctica became a separate continent and drifted to the south pole. Glaciers began to form there about 38 million years ago and the ice cap has buried the continent for the last 5 million years.
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There is even a little animation and everything ;)

Emps
 
Thanks Emps,

So I suppose it is unlikely that there are any large mammals (a part from seals) left on the continent, and not much chance of any ancient civilizations there either.
 
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