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Which 'Monsters' Are Real ?

A

Anonymous

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I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinions on various crytpids/ strange creatures and whether they believe them to be real, or myth.
They are:

SKUNK APE ?
BUNYIP ?
MOKELE MBEMBE ?
'BEAST' OF GEVAUDAN ?
BIGFOOT ?
ORANGE PENDEK ?
CHUPACABRAS ?
GOATMAN ?
DOBHAR-CHU ?
JERSEY DEVIL ?
THUNDERBIRDS ?
 
Skunk ape I've only heard about from an episode of Freakylinks.
Aren't Bunyip Bigfoot, Jersey Devil the same thing? I do kinda believe in Bigfoot anyway.
Chupacabras there are enough witnesses and evidence that it is probably true.
Thunderbirds myth But I'll keep looking through old wild west books for that rumoured photo anyway.
Mkole Membe probably real.
don't know anything about the rest sorry.
 
SKUNK APE: Used to think it was a Bigfoot variety, but post-Myakka unsure, TBH - could well be a seperate species altogether (note Loren Coleman's predictions for this decade)
BUNYIP: Poss relict species - Aboriginal accounts seem fairly consistant for a long time, and there's an awful lot of outback..
MOKELE MBEMBE: Seems more likely to be an as yet unknown Elephant or rhino species, but cannot rule out smaller relic dinosaurs in the "Heart of Darkness"
'BEAST' OF GEVAUDAN: Quite possibly an unusually large wolf or wild dog: other than that, have only the accounts of the time to go on.
BIGFOOT: too many sightings, footprints, durable tallying accounts - yeah, I think it's out there.
ORANGE PENDEK: See above - besides, SE Asia keeps throwing us new species all the time
CHUPACABRAS: Folk devil type panic plus wild dogs, IMHO - that said, won't rule out completely (how impartial am I :D?)
GOATMAN: No.
DOBHAR-CHU: Don't know enough about to make a judgement.
JERSEY DEVIL: Hmm - again, see Skunk Ape - seems more likely to be a Bigfoot type cryptid, but earlier reports have a Chupacabra/Mothman overtone to them...
THUNDERBIRDS: Giant condors? Flying lizards? Who knows: at least not ruling out existence up to a century ago, maybe now extinct - sitting on fence on this one too.
 
I think it's actually 'Orang Pendek'... ;)

I think some of those on the list are possibilities, namely Orang Pendek, 'Bigfoot', and the 'Thunderbird' (or some form of very large bird of prey, seeing as sightings of such have apparently continued into the 20th century).

But, as always, the reports of such are very interesting but the evidence somewhat too scarce ;)
 
Yes, it is Orang Pendek - spot my modly attention to detail there :eek: ...
 
kevinj said:
Aren't Bunyip Bigfoot, Jersey Devil the same thing? I do kinda believe in Bigfoot anyway.
Click to expand...

Nah, mate; that's Yowies. Bunyips are horrible things that live in the water...
 
Here are my thoughts on some:

SKUNK APE & BIGFOOT: Yes, they are in general. I believe in the Patterson film, and think that it's out there, but I don't have an explination at all.

MOKELE MBEMBE: I think that if there were a few in existance, by the late 1800's they were practically extinct, and I don't expect it to ever be found.

'BEAST' OF GEVAUDAN: I think this was a real thing, possibly a carniverous marsupial type creature that was a holdover from the last ice age. If only they had kept the body; when we get around to perfecting that time machine, we need to go back there and find out.

CHUPACABRAS: A little too folk-taleish for me to really get behind.

GOATMAN: Urban Legend type of creature, no for him.

JERSEY DEVIL: Because of the history, maybe there was something going on weird in the Pine Barrens, but I wonder if it was more haunting than cryptoid creature.

THUNDERBIRDS: For some reason, I feel like I even saw the famous photograph somewhere, so I'll vote for "maybe".
 
Re: Re: WHICH 'MONSTERS' ARE REAL ?

Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
THUNDERBIRDS: For some reason, I feel like I even saw the famous photograph somewhere, so I'll vote for "maybe".
Click to expand...

Was that the Civil War pterodactyl pics? Sure there's a thread on that somewhere else on the board.
 
SKUNK APE ? yes
BUNYIP ? not sure
MOKELE MBEMBE ? maybe
'BEAST' OF GEVAUDAN ? not familar with
BIGFOOT ? yes
ORANGE PENDEK ? big yes professionals have seen
CHUPACABRAS ? naah
GOATMAN ? nnaanananano
DOBHAR-CHU ? is that the giant otter? mmmm not sure, cool story
JERSEY DEVIL ?no
THUNDERBIRDS ? possible big flying something , could be..
 
re Orang Pendek.
Absolutely excellent book on this subject, "Hunting The Gugu" by Benedict Allen. 'Gugu' being the local native word for the same supposed beastie, if I remember rightly.
Allen goes in search of man-apes in the jungle, enlisting the help of crazed ex-pats, spooky, chainsmoking tribesmen, and a viewpoint which is pleasingly open to all possibilities, and ends up with... well, that'd be telling...
 
As someone with family ties to Vancouver, I must object most strenuously to the absence of Cadborosaurus from the list.

:D
 
Zygon said:
As someone with family ties to Vancouver, I must object most strenuously to the absence of Cadborosaurus from the list.

:D
Click to expand...
Trust a Zygon to reference something resembling a Skarrsan.
 
Red Dalek said:
Trust a Zygon to reference something resembling a Skarrsan.
Click to expand...
And trust someone called "Red Dalek" to remember what the real name of the Zygons' 'Loch Ness Monster' was. Or to care...

:D
 
Re: Re: Re: WHICH 'MONSTERS' ARE REAL ?

Wastrel said:
Was that the Civil War pterodactyl pics? Sure there's a thread on that somewhere else on the board.
Click to expand...

Uh...Pteranodons and some sort of Ramphoryncoid. Pterodactylus was only a foot across...:err:
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: WHICH 'MONSTERS' ARE REAL ?

Inverurie Jones said:
Uh...Pteranodons and some sort of Ramphoryncoid. Pterodactylus was only a foot across...:err:
Click to expand...
Thought maybe that was the Mahar that David Innes brought back from Pellucidar.

:)
 
Isn't it pronounced Skarasen?

Just remembered a story I read somewhere about two cowboys who found a dead pteradactyl in the desert and tried to bring it back to town but when it was too big they cut of its wingtip as proof, said wingtip pickled in a jar and still kept in a jar. Maybe a fictional story anyone heard of it.

I think the main evidence for the Patterson film is the amount of zoologists who have seen it without immediatly spotting it was a man/woman in a gorilla suit, something that you would expect if it was a fake.

And what about NESSIE or the OLD MAN OF BEN MACDUI, or all the other local cryptids.
 
How about none of them?
No bigfoots-(all fakes)
no Mokele Mbebe - (dead rhinos)
no Chupacabra - (hysteria)
and so on

there are cryptids out there- a new sub-species of chimp is a recent possible candidate, various escaped and dumped out-of-place animals, a steady trickle of new ungulates discovered in Asia, the Kellas cat hybrids- and the new giant squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni ...
plenty of room for large unidentified species in the oceans.

but practically everything on this list owes its existence in the public mind to fraud or foolishness.

The only one I would even entertain the possibility of is the orang pendek...
and even then it will probably only be a subspecies of orang utan.
 
Apologies for any creatures I left out, i.e. Caddy, Ogopogo, Monkey Man, Nessie, Chessie, Ishi, Mapinguari, black dogs etc, but I just wanted to find out what others believed or may have beed fed over the years with all the books etc.
I have often looked at some oddities and connected them to cultural beliefs, political upheaval, hysteria, urban legend etc, and these things certainly come in cycles although Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape, the Yeti etc certainly appear as flesh and blood creatures in the same way the Mountain Gorilla or Panda once was. Bigfoot is without doubt (despite there being many species) the most often sighted 'monster' although I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to what lurks in the oceans. The Dobhar-Chu is also a possibility although such creatures may roam far and wide and are certainly not confined to Ireland.
I was interested to see how many people dismissed Goatman despite the fact it is indeed a Bigfoot figure rather than the trash churned out by the legends, and the Jersey Devil could well be a combination of real, mysterious Bigfoot and also Cougar attacks on livestock, which would also explain the eerie screams in the Pine Barrens where the Cougar was said to roam no longer.
I am also intrigued by the lack of belief in the Goatsucker despite several reports from Puerto Rico into Argentina, although different cultures do perceive these fears differently, but does anyone think that the lack of updates on certain mysteries can cause a scepticism despite the fact that across the net, and in some books there are constant reports of such creatures.
 
NEIL said:
I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinions on various crytpids/ strange creatures and whether they believe them to be real, or myth.
They are:

SKUNK APE ?
BUNYIP ?
MOKELE MBEMBE ?
'BEAST' OF GEVAUDAN ?
BIGFOOT ?
ORANGE PENDEK ?
CHUPACABRAS ?
GOATMAN ?
DOBHAR-CHU ?
JERSEY DEVIL ?
THUNDERBIRDS ?
Click to expand...

The Dobhar Chu and the Mokele Mbembe have a high probability of being real animals, though not necessarily what people expect or want them to be. Cannot comment on the remainder.
 
The Gevaudan 'beast' was proven to be a hyena of some sort, and certainly not a rabid dog or wolf. Wolves were abundant in the mountains at the time and what the locals were describing was not wolf-like, but this case proves that a truth does lurk behind such a sinister scenario.
 
Well obviously you couldn't have listed EVERY possible cryptid, as there are no doubt hundreds. Taking that into consideration, I'll just address my own list:

Dobhar Chu: No sightings for a long time, and probably extinct, but were probably real animals at one time.

Bigfoot: Odds are they're out there. There's just too much evidence.

Almas: Probably extinct now, but there may be evidence for their one time existance.

Orang Pendek: Very good chance, I think. Probably a variant Orangutan.

The Ahool: It's just a big bat. Why not?

The Mapinguary: I seem to remember Adam Davies and a lot of other cryptozoologists finding some pretty convincing DNA and fecal evidence for Ground Sloths in South America.

Of course there could be just about anything roaming around Southeast Asia, not to mention the Amazon rainforest and the Congo jungle. Also, there could be virtually no limit to the number of undiscovered species in the ocean's depths, but I doubt most things would qualify as "monsters."
 
Personally, I feel some of the more obscure cryptids are more likely to exist. Orang Pendek I have a really positive feeling something will be found in the next year or two! The Ahool I'd say is very likely to exist, and I just see it as being a very large unknown, fish-eating bat.

Mapinguary also, witness reports seem credible and believable. That South American giant burrowing worm/slug thing, can't remember the name for the life of me, is quite interesting as well.

In the USA and Canada, I would love to think Bigfoot is out there but its the lake monsters and sea serpents that most interest me - ogopogo, champ, caddie etc. Caddie in particular I find very believable.

Some of the practically unknown cryptids are great - anyone heard of the Veo, for example? Some island in Indonesia, locals say at night a creature the size of a small horse or donkey shuffles to the coast from the jungle and eats shellfish and crabs. They say it has scaled or armoured sides that shimmer in the moonlight, and large claws. Sounds to me like some kind of giant, unknown pangolin? Or a glyptodon??! Haha.
 
Maybe we should have a poll on this one? How about a votable league table on the cryptids most likely to succeed?
 
Sertile said:
Bigfoot: Odds are they're out there. There's just too much evidence.

Almas: Probably extinct now, but there may be evidence for their one time existance.
Click to expand...

But North American has no historical ape population like Gigantipithicus (sic?).

In terms of the Almas; the CFZ expedition found large amounts anecdotal eveidence for them, including two zoologists who had first hand sightings, one at close range for several minutes.

Mokele Mbembe could be a very large monitor lizard, as I understand it there is more than one sizable unknown creature in the Congo and they all get morphed into Mokele Mbembe reports, it's possible there may be a undiscovered rhino and lizard.

As to sea "serpents", i have no trouble in believing in giant eels and giant, depth dwelling fish. Mammals like Heuvalman's Long Neck, Mer-Hors etc, just seem to unlikely. Or reptiles for that matter, both have to breath on the surface.
 
Maybe we should have a poll on this one? How about a votable league table on the cryptids most likely to succeed?
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good idea to me.

But North American has no historical ape population like Gigantipithicus (sic?).
Click to expand...
Most countries/regions with BHM histories don't have ape or 'missing link' histories.

The last I heard about Mokele Mbembe was speculation that it was actually a mammal!!?? This Congo basin Jurassic Park malarkey has been dragging on for as long as I can remember and now this mammal hypothesesis gets thrown into the ring. Apart from Mokele there's (allegedly) triceratops, a 5-foot spider and BHMs too. Yet not one single blurred photo or shaky low-res video has emerged.
Sightings of huge sea serpents have diminished since steam and then diesel driven ships became common - perhaps the noise scared them off.
Two of my personal favourites are the ropen (Cryptomundo mentioned an expedition back in February, wonder what happened to it), and megalania, which is very rarely heard from.
 
[quoteThe last I heard about Mokele Mbembe was speculation that it was actually a mammal!!?? This Congo basin Jurassic Park malarkey has been dragging on for as long as I can remember and now this mammal hypothesesis gets thrown into the ring. Apart from Mokele there's (allegedly) triceratops, a 5-foot spider and BHMs too. Yet not one single blurred photo or shaky low-res video has emerged.

Well said, Mokele mbembe is in my opinion a composite animal from various aspects of Bantu folklore meant to illustrate the superiority of the agrarian rather than forest lifestyle, there doesn't seem to be a Pygmy word for it, which is odd as you'd expect the Pygmies to have told the Bantu population about it, there fore giving them their word for it rather than the other way round. It wouldn't be the first time one culture has adopted another's superstition.


The big problem for cryptozoology is that however big the area few places are undisturbed, unpolluted, unpoached, unlogged and generally unmolested enough to hide a breeding population. Why don't sea serpents ever get caught in drift nets like dolphins and sharks, and why when so many of the worlds cat, bear and ape species are threatened can Bigfoot,in a country with a population of in excess of 300,000 000, hide a population of large animals of the size required to explain even a tenth of the number of sightings, without any tangible proof. Even though America is huge with vast tracts of wilderness, humans there have as everywhere else managed to drive many of it's mammal species onto the endangered species list, without bagging a single Sasquatch.
[/quote]

yet again cocked up the quotes, its the first paragraph.
 
Your Mokele Mbembe theory has the ring of truth to it.
I haven't any answers to the question of where all the marine beasties have gone. There's mention of the New Zealand mososaur sightings round here somewhere.

As for Biggies I find it conceivable that there are far more than 73 out there.
This could stretch credulity at the Dr Baltar/Timble end of the spectrum to say the least, but I suspect they can sense the presence and maybe even mindset of humans, and they have evolved avoidance tactics. This could include a faculty for invisibility, using infrasound to trick the human brain into not registering their presence. Check out "The Locals" by Thom Powell.
 
Bigfoot73 said:
Most countries/regions with BHM histories don't have ape or 'missing link' histories
Click to expand...

So in most of those countries the phenomena is folkloric or psychosocial?

Bigfoot73 said:
The last I heard about Mokele Mbembe was speculation that it was actually a mammal!!?? This Congo basin Jurassic Park malarkey has been dragging on for as long as I can remember and now this mammal hypothesesis gets thrown into the ring. Apart from Mokele there's (allegedly) triceratops, a 5-foot spider and BHMs too. Yet not one single blurred photo or shaky low-res video has emerged.
Sightings of huge sea serpents have diminished since steam and then diesel driven ships became common - perhaps the noise scared them off.
Two of my personal favourites are the ropen (Cryptomundo mentioned an expedition back in February, wonder what happened to it), and megalania, which is very rarely heard from.
Click to expand...

I think a Japanese film crew filmed "something" swimming in a lake in th Congo from their helicopter. I don't know if it's been proven to be a known animal yet. I'm guessing the "triceratops" is a rhino (if anything physical) and as to the BHM and five foot spider? I very much doubt either exist.

The sightings of large monitor lizards in Australia are of thinner, longer necked reptiles- megalania was thickset with a short, stocky neck. So if there large lizards lurking downunder, I assume they are a different species.[/quote]
 
oldrover said:
Well said, Mokele mbembe is in my opinion a composite animal from various aspects of Bantu folklore meant to illustrate the superiority of the agrarian rather than forest lifestyle, there doesn't seem to be a Pygmy word for it, which is odd as you'd expect the Pygmies to have told the Bantu population about it, there fore giving them their word for it rather than the other way round. It wouldn't be the first time one culture has adopted another's superstition.

The big problem for cryptozoology is that however big the area few places are undisturbed, unpolluted, unpoached, unlogged and generally unmolested enough to hide a breeding population. Why don't sea serpents ever get caught in drift nets like dolphins and sharks, and why when so many of the worlds cat, bear and ape species are threatened can Bigfoot,in a country with a population of in excess of 300,000 000, hide a population of large animals of the size required to explain even a tenth of the number of sightings, without any tangible proof. Even though America is huge with vast tracts of wilderness, humans there have as everywhere else managed to drive many of it's mammal species onto the endangered species list, without bagging a single Sasquatch.
Click to expand...

The chances are that Mokele Mbembe (and indeed most or all large cryptids) are folkloric, but the swamps in the Congo are large, dense, remote and dangerous enough to possibly home one or two unknown large species which have avoided contact with non-locals.

As to your point about sea serpents, Richard Freeman from the CFZ went on holiday as a child to somewhere in the UK, I think Cornwall, and he and family member got talking to some local fishermen. One of them said on one occasion, one of the boats he was working on, hauled in their catch and instead of many haundreds of fish, they had one enormous eel, which he thought was 50 feet long. It's struggling broke the net and it swam away. OK, the story cold be codswallop. But if there are large undiscovered vertebrates in the sea, they are most likely fish or eels.

As for bigfoot, as you say, I just don't see it in a country so developed and populated.
 
As the title of this thread is which monster's are real

As for Biggies I find it conceivable that there are far more than 73 out there.
This could stretch credulity at the Dr Baltar/Timble end of the spectrum to say the least, but I suspect they can sense the presence and maybe even mindset of humans, and they have evolved avoidance tactics. This could include a faculty for invisibility, using infrasound to trick the human brain into not registering their presence. Check out "The Locals" by Thom Powell. [/quote]

what you say above raises the next question about cryptozoology, as to whether it deals with animals such as Thylacines which originate in terms of natural evolution and are generally examined in terms of whether there's a potential food supply habitat etc. Or whether things like creatures,whose possession of the sort of abilities you describe in my opinion cant really be argued to originate from natural evolution and which put them into the category of supernatural beings like (just as an example) mothman, are part of it also.


If you consider that most if not all cultures have a hairy less civilised than us man come beast legend, even Australia well past the Wallace line, then the world either is or was teeming with them or their a fundemental part of human folk culture.
 
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