Hoax Museum Blog: Cryptozoology

Frenchman Collides Sacredly with Nessie — Frenchman Don Jean Habrey, whose stage name is Hors Humain (beyond human), has announced his intention to embark on a "sacred collision with Nessie." Specifically, he plans to dive into Loch Ness and "breathe with the monster to send ultimate breathing to the world of childhood.”

Later, he'll make a Christmas Eve visit to the Loch and "conjure the mythical creature from the loch, with chants, drumming, burning flares and bonfires round the shore."

“Nessie will breathe golden pearls for all the children from the earth, this endangered innocence that badly needs air.
“A boat equipped with a sound system will air the great organs of Notre Dame de Paris on the waves of the loch and the oratorios by Mozart, Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach will resound, together with the Hors Humain’s chants and kettledrums.”

I'm sad that I'm going to miss it.
Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008.   Comments (2)

Big Footprint Found — Harold Jackson, a resident of Cookeville, Tennessee, found an indentation on a rock on his property. It looks vaguely like a footprint... a very big footprint. 11 inches across and 15 inches long. The article says he took it home. (I assume he must have made a cast of it and taken that home.)

The surprising thing is that he doesn't think it's a Bigfoot print, though his friends do. He thinks it's a footprint of a Native American.

So how tall would this Native American have been if his feet were 15-inches long? According to WikiAnswers, a person's foot is usually 15% of the height of his body. Therefore, this Native American would have been approximately 100 inches tall, or 8.3 feet.
Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008.   Comments (28)

Checking in with Bigfoot — Last week I predicted that the discovery of Bigfoot's body was bound to be a hoax. Score one for me. I also said the "body" looked like a Bigfoot costume. Score another one for me.

In all fairness, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. The Bigfoot Body farce was so obviously a hoax that I'm surprised it gained as much traction as it did. But then, the media can be relied upon to eat up a good Bigfoot story.

Meanwhile, Bigfoot promoter Tom Biscardi, who paid Georgia "Bigfoot trackers" Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer $50,000 for the body, is trying to pass himself off as the victim of a scam. And Whitton and Dyer are trying to portray themselves as clever pranksters. My sense is that they were all out to make a buck.

Links: Fox News, Yahoo! News.
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008.   Comments (20)

Bigfoot Body Found—Sure to be a hoax — On Friday Aug 15 a press conference is scheduled in Palo Alto to present evidence suggesting that the corpse of a Bigfoot has been found in Georgia. DNA evidence and photo evidence will be presented. (Thanks to everyone who emailed me about this.)

I'd just like to go on record before the press conference to predict that it's going to be a hoax. Bigfoot hasn't been found. Why? Because if a Bigfoot species existed in North America, it would have been found long ago. To remain hidden this long, the Bigfoot species would need to have supernatural abilities.

The evidence that's been leaked so far in support of the Bigfoot Body consists of a photo of what looks like a Bigfoot costume stuffed into a freezer.

Already the "Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization" is claiming that "The Georgia *Bigfoot Body* story is a hoax orchestrated by a veteran media hoaxer named Tom Biscardi."

See my list of Bigfoot Hoaxes for some of the history of Sasquatch shenanigans.
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008.   Comments (49)


The Montauk Monster — The story so far:

A bizarre creature washed up on Ditch Plains beach near Montauk, New York on July 12.

Local resident Jenna Hewitt took some photos of it. However, the body is now gone. Some guy (unidentified) supposedly has it in his backyard.

In the absence of any evidence except for the photo, there are many theories about what it might be: a sea turtle, a dog, a raccoon missing an upper jaw, a creature from the government's animal-disease lab on Plum Island, or a hoax.

We'll have to wait and see what transpires. Links: Newsday, Gawker.
Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008.   Comments (34)

Nessie Does New York — Apexart, in New York City, is currently hosting an exhibition titled "Nessie Does New York: Monetizing Myth, Legend & Culture." It's basically a collection of Nessie, Bigfoot, and Chupacabra-related kitsch.

Their downloadable exhibition brochure poses this question:

Is it the marketing of myth, or the myth of marketing that keeps these creatures alive? (Who knows?)
In other words, is it that we want to believe there's a small chance Bigfoot might show up on a logging road after we've savagely clear cut his habitat and ask for a room at the zoo and a royalty check? Or because no trip to Scotland would be complete without the requisite photo on the banks of Urquhart Bay while eating a sack of chocolate Loch Ness "droppings," and then buying a shot glass and a set of Nessie-emblazoned golf balls "for your friend"?


Where were the chocolate Nessie droppings when I was in Loch Ness? I didn't see those anywhere, and I definitely would have bought them.
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008.   Comments (4)

Loch Ness Imposter — Threadless.com is selling a t-shirt with this picture. I thought it was cute, but I already own too many t-shirts, so I'm not gonna buy this one.


Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008.   Comments (6)

Does Bigfoot Use Microwaves? — Backyard Phenomena has posted an interesting speculation about why some witnesses report receiving telepathic messages from Bigfoot:

If we skip the old "they're crazy" idea, then perhaps we can look to science for an answer...strange-but-true science. A newly declassified report released by the U.S. Army under the Freedom of Information Act describes technologies which can induce similar effects to those reported by some Bigfoot witnesses (and some UFO witnesses). What is the technology in question?
Microwaves.

Some military experiments have shown that microwaves can be used to make a person hear sounds inside their head. So Backyard Phenomena suggests that, "If Bigfoot and UFOs go together, as I believe they do, then their alien handlers could use microwave technology to confound or control witnesses via seeming telepathy."

Me? I'm sticking with the "they're crazy" explanation.
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008.   Comments (3)

Molested By Bigfoot — 57-year-old Gene Morrill was charged with soliciting 13-year-old boys over the internet. He pleaded guilty, but in his defense noted that he himself had been molested as a child -- by Bigfoot! The Free Lance-Star reports:

Morrill told an investigator preparing his pre-sentence report about being sexually assaulted by the legendary Bigfoot, a North American folklore character said to be between 7 and 10 feet tall, and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Patton [his defense attorney] said Morrill really believes the assault happened.

It was probably a strategy to get a reduced sentence due to mental incompetence, but it didn't work. He was sentenced to twenty years.

Quite a few people, men and women, have claimed over the years that they were abducted and molested by Bigfoot. The most famous was the Canadian prospector Albert Ostman, who said that Bigfoot abducted him and held him prisoner for six days for breeding purposes. Brian Helme submitted a haiku to the site a few years ago inspired by this theme:

Bigfoot, he saw me.
Grabbed me and ran far away.
I’ll be his boy toy.

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008.   Comments (10)

Google Nessie — Tom Spring, writing for Computer World, describes many of the jokes and tricks hidden in Google's various websites and programs. One that I wasn't aware of is that Nessie regularly surfaces on iGoogle:

set your alarm to 3:14 a.m. and your browser to the beach-themed iGoogle page. At precisely that time each day, Nessie surfaces for 60 seconds, then takes a deep breath and dives back under the dark loch's surface. Why that time of the morning? Well, according to programmers' lore, Google developers did it to pay homage to the mathematical quantity Pi.

I don't think I'll ever get to see this, since 3:14 am is way past my bedtime. (I now have great trouble staying up past midnight, unlike in grad school when I would regularly still be awake at sunrise.)

Another hidden Google joke is "Google Gothic". Type this phrase into the Google search engine, and then hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button. You'll be taken to Googoth, a search engine catering to "dark, gothic, industrial, and alternative topics."
Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008.   Comments (13)

Romanian Bigfoot — Flickr user vasiliumihnea has uploaded pictures of a Bigfoot he spotted in Romania. He writes:

Photos taken friday, February 8th 2008, in Romania, Vrancea Mountains. A tall strange humanoid crossing the road, that's what I saw.

Normally I'm quite skeptical of Bigfoot sightings. But wow! These photos are convincing. They look nothing like a guy in an ape suit. Though maybe it's Cain.



Related article: Bigfoot Hoaxes

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008.   Comments (16)

Loch Ness Monster Poetry — In the article about the Loch Ness Monster in the hoaxipedia, I've posted some Nessie haiku contributed by readers. I'm quite proud of my own contribution:

Lurking in the deep,
centuries old. Addicted
to tourist sushi.

But far more accomplished poets have also been inspired by Nessie. Glasgow's poet laureate, Edwin Morgan, included a poem, "The Loch Ness Monster's Song," in his 1970 collection Twelve Songs. Here it is:

Sssnnnwhufffffl?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblobblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbl.
Drublhaflabhalflubhafgabhhafl fl fl -
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok-doplodovok-plovodokot-doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafthatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl-
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp.

According to a Rice University webpage, in 1991 the poem was reprinted in 100 Poems on the Underground, and had this explanation appended to it:

"The author explained in conversation that the lonely monster rises from
the loch and looks round for the companions of his youth -- prehistoric
reptiles -- and, finding nobody he knows, he descends again to the depths
after a brief swearing session. This was confirmed by a nine-year-old boy
in a workshop, who said the monster was 'looking for a diplodocus'. When
asked how he knew that, he said, 'It says so.' It does."

Sure enough, if you read the poem closely, you can tell that the monster is looking for a diplodocus, and does then start swearing.
Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008.   Comments (8)

The Martian Bigfoot — Flora posted an image in the forum of what looks like a Martian bigfoot. (I inserted a picture of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot for comparison.)

According to metro.co.uk, the image was taken by NASA's Mars Explorer Spirit, but it "wasn't until space and science fiction enthusiasts became involved that the images were taken more seriously."

Here's the complete NASA image (thanks, Mongo) from which the image above was enlarged. I drew a red circle around the Bigfoot image. It's barely visible, in the far left corner. As you can see, the Martian Bigfoot is very, very small. Perhaps Littlefoot would be a better name for him.




The image of the Martian Bigfoot comes on the heels of the Martian "Doorway" which was doing the rounds last month. It's just non-stop Martian Pareidolia.


Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008.   Comments (15)

Is Bigfoot really Cain? — Here's a Bigfoot theory I haven't heard before. Apparently there are some in the Mormon church who hypothesize that Bigfoot may actually be Cain, condemned to walk the earth forever. Matt Bowman provides some scholarly elaboration on this theory on the Mormon Mentality blog.

Apparently the Bigfoot-Cain connection traces back to a story told by an early leader of the Mormon church, David W. Patten. Patten claimed that in 1835 he encountered Cain walking along the side of the road. He wrote: "He walked along beside me for about two miles. His head was about even with my shoulders as I sat in my saddle. He wore no clothing, but was covered with hair. His skin was very dark."

Hmm. That sounds kind of like Bigfoot. At least, that's what some Mormons have apparently concluded in recent decades. Bowman writes: "Cain’s identification as Bigfoot has provided Mormons with a way to assimilate the claims of folktale with new conceptions of what Cain, the embodiment of evil, should be like."

So if Bigfoot is Cain, maybe Nessie is really the snake from the Garden of Eden. 😉
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008.   Comments (27)

Bigfoot Bait — I wonder how many women are going to respond to this craigslist ad? The scary thing is that the guy's probably completely serious.


Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008.   Comments (6)

Loch Ness Terror Plot? — This is weird:
An east London electrician accused of having terror ties claimed he was not attending training camps but hunting for the Loch Ness Monster during a trip to Scotland with other terror suspects, the Scottish Daily Record reported Saturday.

Kader Ahmed, 20, was up in the Loch Ness area with a group organized by preacher Mohammed Hamid. I wonder if they went on the Nessie Hunter cruise with that boat captain who sounded like Sean Connery?
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007.   Comments (1)

Bigfoot Prank — WTVY News reports on a prank that reminded me of the Winsted Wild Man hoax from 1895, although quite a bit less sensational:
A teenager wore an outfit depicting the mythical Bigfoot creature. He then carried a fellow young person on each shoulder.
Alarmed residents called the sheriff's department and several others armed with shotguns headed to where the prank was taking place.
The young people, ranging in age from 18-to-23, were given a warning.
However, sheriff's officials say those involved in any copycat incidents will face reckless endangerment charges.

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007.   Comments (5)

Yeti Footprint Photo Fetches Monster Price — A 1951 photo of a "yeti footprint" recently sold at Christie's for £3,500. That's almost $7000 (thanks to the lousy exchange rate we Americans are currently stuck with).

The photo was taken in the Himalayas in 1951 by Eric Shipton, who was a member of a reconaissance expedition scouting the region before attempting to climb Mt. Everest. Another member of the team, Tom Bourdillon, included this note with the picture when he sent it to his friend Michael Davies:
“Dear Mick, here are the footprint photos: sorry for the delay. We came across them on a high pass on the Nepal-Tibet watershed during the 1951 Everest expedition.
“They seemed to have come over a secondary pass at about 19,500ft, down to 19,000ft where we first saw them, and then went on down the glacier. We followed them for the better part of a mile.
“What it is, I don’t know, but I am quite clear that it is no animal known to live in the Himalaya, and that it is big. Compare the depths to which it and Mike Ward (no featherweight) have broken into the snow. Yours, Tom Bourdillon.”
If anyone wants some photos of footprints of the San Diego Yeti, taken in my backyard, I'm willing to sell them for a reasonable price. (Thanks, Cranky Media Guy)
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007.   Comments (5)

Best of the forum - 21st September 07 — Due to my ongoing computer problems and personal situation, this is again brought to you by Madmouse.

Peruvian Meteorite (eovti)
An apparent meteorite landing in Peru has led to reports of illness amongst locals. Original suggestions for the cause of the sickness included radiation poisoning, but that seems unlikely.

Sign Language Translator (Madmouse)
There’s been a lot of discussion in the forum about this story. A group of UK students have developed a system to translate spoken or written words into British Sign Language that is then displayed by an avatar. Suggested uses include translating for meetings and for phone calls. This seems like a very good idea to me, although a lot more development is needed.

Belgium For Sale on Ebay (LaMa)
A disgruntled Belgian, protesting about Belgium’s political problems, put the country up for sale on Ebay. He pointed out that, although the nation is second-hand, the offer included free delivery.

Bigfoot Revealed!!! (gray)
A prankster who has posing as Bigfoot to scare campers for the last two years was captured in Manitoba. Apparently the man was less intimidated by the police than he was by the telling-off delivered by his last ‘victim’.
Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007.   Comments (0)

Manusia Kena Sumpah — I have no idea what the meaning of this video is, but whoever created it appears to be trying to simulate the appearance of a Feejee Mermaid-type creature. I found it linked to on the CeticismoAberto blog, where it's noted that the illusion of the creature is created in much the same way as magicians create the illusion of sawing a woman in half. In other words, this Feejee Mermaid actually consists of someone's head poking out the top of a box, with the body of the mermaid being manipulated separately from the head.


Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007.   Comments (5)

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