WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Monday, September 21, 2009

MAX BLAKE: Eyewitness account of the events at the Lakes of Killarney, Co Kerry, last thursday


On Thursday the 17th of September, 2009 Tony ‘Doc’ Shiels took Jonathan Downes, Corinna Downes and myself around a peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. After travelling around the ring we reached a viewpoint called Lady’s View, a raised viewpoint from which you could see the three lakes of Killarney, North Lake, Muckross Lake and Lough Leane. I stood with the JVC Everio video camera, Corinna was using a Canon 350d with a 70-300mm telephoto lens, and Jon had a small point and click 3x zoom Fujifilm Z10. Once we were alone, after we had all talked about sightings of lake monsters on the lakes, particularly Muckross, Tony told us to keep watching the Northen lake. The lake was generally calm and still, there was a very very gentle breeze in the air, and the centre of the lake had a gentle amount of rippling on it, whilst the rest was very still. There was a floating log or rock in the lake about 50yrds out from the edge, near our side. There was also a large island over to the right hand side. This was around 50-60yrds long, and 30yrds wide (please see rough sketch).

After a couple of minutes a couple of large white ripples started to break on the surface. What made these ripples I do not know; I saw nothing break the water. I was already filming, but as the battery was running very low, I expected it to stop filming and die at any minute. A couple more ripples broke, and Jon said that he could see something large and white moving in the north end of the lake. It dived down before I could see it/film it. The rough area that this occurred in has been called 'anomalous 1' in the sketch. A little later there was a large wake forming in front of the log/rock. This moved at a rapid pace toward the shoreline. I zoomed in to about 12x, and the object broke the surface before diving. This created a large ripple, which can be seen on the film. Both the ripple and the wake spread out and took a while to vanish. This has been called 'anomalous 2' on the sketch. After this occurred a bird on the water took off to the right of 'anomalous 2' and flew off in a curve, coming at first straight toward us, then over to the left. It left behind a wake as it peddled along the water to get airbourne, before taking off and being visible to me as a small black bird. It was probably a tufted duck.


A couple more ripples later, and another object was seen moving on the right side of the Island, moving right. It was moving slower than 'anomalous 2 and as such the sighting lasted longer. There seemed to be something pertruding from the water making the wake, but this could have been a trick of the eye. The track of this has been called 'anomalous 3' in the sketch.


What I saw, I do not know. I saw no features of an animal making the wake. All I know is that something large made the marks. A large salmon moving across the top of the water would not have made a mark anywhere near the size of this. If I had to make a guess, I would say that it was most likely to have been a giant eel.

No comments: