Monday, June 15, 2009
MORE ON ANDRE ISSI
If one good thing has come out of the ongoing saga of the Peruvian giant snake, it is that we have made friends with Andre Issi and if it had not been for all this stuff about Mike and Greg Warner's expedition to Peru, then none of this would ever have happened.One of Andre's pictures was taken out of context by a Northern Irish newspaper which implied that it was the 40m snake claimed by ther Warners. It was of course no such
thing and the forces of righteousness, led by Dr Dan, said as much. Unfortunately we all jumped to the conclusion that Andre was the bloke claiming that the snake in the pictures, which, as you can see, is dead (or nearly so) and floating in the water, was the one claimed to be 40m. As Andre writes:"I was traveling alone by kayak from BrasÃlia to Santa Catarina (state of Brazil) in a long journey along 6000 km crossing Brazil, Uruguay,
Paraguay and Argentina. It was so hard and I almost die three times. About a city Guaira (frontier between Brasil and Paraguay) I saw this anaconda floating in the river. I take a lot of pictures and filmed. It has about six meters and his head is under the water arrested in the trees. I had never seen anaconda before and I became very nervous, at the last moment thinking it was alive.
My kayak has 5,20 m and the
anaconda has about six meters. Only it. I´ll send you another photo beside the anaconda that i take like a joke because it seems like reference to see the real tale of the snake."As one can see from the pictures, Andre is clearly an OK dude, who is more than averagely intrepid and is possessed of a silly sense of humour; attributes that would make him an ideal member of the CFZ. Dan writes:
"Convey my apologies to Mr Issi (...) I'll buy him all the beer he fancies; he appears to have achieved a rare feat indeed: he
photographed a wild anaconda in its natural habitat without the aid of a team of snake-handlers and he managed to find quite a big one at that. Admittedly, it was dead at the time, which takes a bit of the shine off the achievement but not very much shine;6m anacondas surely don't die very often and photographing one in the couple of days between death and complete decomposition is quite an achievement (especially seeing as us lot in an overcrowded island have yet to get our hands on even one of the supposedly ubiquitous big cats
that are supposed to be here).
So, apologies to Andre from me and if he's coming to Woolsery at any time, please pre-warn both myself and the landlord of the local pub.... "
And this is the way that disagreements within the Fortean and cryptozoological communities should be managed: like gentlemen, with a handshake and a beer afterwards, and not with endless flame wars and backbiting. There are certain other people within the Crypto community who really should take note of this.
But off my soapbox - over to Andre with a few more pictures....
How can I describe eight months about a journey in one page? I can´t send more images while was traveling by the simple fact was in the forest or in the middle of a poor small cities where a computer was difficult access or days and days without cities. I beginning it in the center of south america and ends it in the south coast of Brasil after the kayak schok in my head while I was returning to the coast between big waves of the Atlantic Ocean, like you can see in the photo with a life guard behind me. I almost was arrested in Uruguay because I was alone without a life boat. I must to do a trailer and buy an old bike to cross Uruguay by land 650 km. In Brasil I return to water and go to the north.I never receive any money cause this or try to receive. I only do my travels by adventure.
CAPTIONS:
(Above left) Tracks of Jaguars where he slept for the night
(Left) "Impossible is only a word. I do it"
(Below Left) Off the Coat of San Catarina
(Bottom) Crossing Uruguay by Bicycle
Dude, it is a pleasure to know you and I hope you remain part of the CFZ family for many years to come!
WEIRD WEEKEND UPDATES
Blame Dr Shuker: he has been hustling me to do this for weeks but I have never actually got around to updating the CFZ Weird Weekend website until today. However, both the speakers list and the programme have been updated, and jolly good they look.
Check out http://www.weirdweekend.org/ and buy your tickets before it gets too late. The 14-16 August is going to be the best and certainly the weirdest weekend of the year!
THE PERUVIAN GIANT SNAKE EXPEDITION DATA - MONDAY
I have given Greg and Mike Warner the chance to present the remaining data from their expedition themselves and over the next few days they will be doing just that in their own words."This is one of the first satellite images I had privately commissioned during the research phase of the Napo/Amazon confluence. I believe it is one of the most important pieces of data that I have collected. I invite people to comment on what they see and I will respond with my personal theory later...Thanks, Mike Warner"
Greg also asked me to release the picture below because "it will give a sense of scale to the one released originally."
NAME THESE INSECTS
These three pictures were posted to one of the entomology groups on Usenet this morning by people who didn't know what they are. I have a pretty good idea what the top one is but don't know about the other two (which seem to be the same species). Anyone out there have any bright ideas?
INTRODUCTING THE NEW SCOURGE OF SYNTAX...
You all know Lizzy as that nice Miss Clancy who writes bloggo pieces about chickens and bees. What a sweet girl, you have probably thought as you read how her new book is rapidly being thought of as a classic of its genre (at least by the pundits on the CFZ bloggo).Well, sadly, we have just discovered that she has another side: a vicious side; a frightening side; frightening if you are the author of bad grammar, that is, because Lizzy ("That's Miss Clare-Elizabeth to you, sonny" she snarls as she weilds her red pen with the sort of viciousness one expects from an avenging angel) has just become the Bloggo sub-editor (or grammar Nazi, as she has been described by those in awe of her spellingly goodness).
It is something that we have needed for ages. The workload of keeping this circus on the road is too much for Jon to do completely single-handedly and his spelling, whilst not as bad as some of the other bloggo people, is pretty horrific so (reluctantly) to quote Artie on The Larry Sanders Show we have opened a box far worse than Pandora's and let loose an avenging syntax angel upon an unsuspecting world.
We just didn't expect her to be so scary!
OLL LEWIS: Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/
With all the new people visiting this blog there is a chance people might be reading the yesterday’s news today posts with a look of doubt and enquiry upon their faces. Well, I suppose I had better offer an explanation of what this short posting is about. Well, as well as this blog, which mainly concerns articles written by members of the CFZ, we have another blog. This other blog is a place with articles from old media outlets like news papers posted by Mr Wilson (not to be confused with the other Mr Wilson) who you may have seen in the comments sections here sporting a fine hedgehog avatar. The articles are mainly to do with cryptozoology or at least have a link to the subject, even though sometimes the link might be a bit tenuous. If the story is of interest to cryptozoologists we’ll make sure it gets sent to Gavin to pop up on the blog. Once the stories are uploaded I then write a bit of a preamble that nobody reads (unless you’re reading it now just to be all cool and rebellious), post the links and pop a pun on the end from ‘Bob Monkhouse’s Big Book O’ Puns’ and then it’s ready to hand over to Jon to upload to tomorrows blog. The hand-over ceremony is of course a closely guarded secret, like the location of Elvis Presley’s retirement bungalow or the recipe of Iron Bru but I can tell you it involves a golden suit, the word 'hens' and the set of Noel’s House Party. On the subject of the set of Noel’s House Party, did you know that was Noel’s real house? He had the audience seating put in for the house party and kept it after as a reminder of the fun he would have watching people ‘grabbing a grand’ or by Frank Carson turning up and doing something unfunny. On a darker note, when the CFZ explored the premises I found a hidden laboratory deep in the cellars where they preformed genetic experiments to create Mr Blobby and his family. But anyway, I digress; here is the news:
Six-legged cow found in China
Exploring the 'Google forest'
Alaska's Rat Island rat-free after 229 years
Dog finds dope, eats dope, gets stoned
Guns expel snakes from police station
Female fox steals 100 shoes
She only did it because she thought the new boots might make her look more ‘foxy’.
With all the new people visiting this blog there is a chance people might be reading the yesterday’s news today posts with a look of doubt and enquiry upon their faces. Well, I suppose I had better offer an explanation of what this short posting is about. Well, as well as this blog, which mainly concerns articles written by members of the CFZ, we have another blog. This other blog is a place with articles from old media outlets like news papers posted by Mr Wilson (not to be confused with the other Mr Wilson) who you may have seen in the comments sections here sporting a fine hedgehog avatar. The articles are mainly to do with cryptozoology or at least have a link to the subject, even though sometimes the link might be a bit tenuous. If the story is of interest to cryptozoologists we’ll make sure it gets sent to Gavin to pop up on the blog. Once the stories are uploaded I then write a bit of a preamble that nobody reads (unless you’re reading it now just to be all cool and rebellious), post the links and pop a pun on the end from ‘Bob Monkhouse’s Big Book O’ Puns’ and then it’s ready to hand over to Jon to upload to tomorrows blog. The hand-over ceremony is of course a closely guarded secret, like the location of Elvis Presley’s retirement bungalow or the recipe of Iron Bru but I can tell you it involves a golden suit, the word 'hens' and the set of Noel’s House Party. On the subject of the set of Noel’s House Party, did you know that was Noel’s real house? He had the audience seating put in for the house party and kept it after as a reminder of the fun he would have watching people ‘grabbing a grand’ or by Frank Carson turning up and doing something unfunny. On a darker note, when the CFZ explored the premises I found a hidden laboratory deep in the cellars where they preformed genetic experiments to create Mr Blobby and his family. But anyway, I digress; here is the news:
Six-legged cow found in China
Exploring the 'Google forest'
Alaska's Rat Island rat-free after 229 years
Dog finds dope, eats dope, gets stoned
Guns expel snakes from police station
Female fox steals 100 shoes
She only did it because she thought the new boots might make her look more ‘foxy’.