OLL LEWIS: 5 Questions on… Cryptozoology - SAM SHEARON (aka Mr Sam)

In the hotseat today is Sam Shearon (Mister Sam). Sam is an artist and Fortean and has hunted many cryptids in his time, including the beast of Green Drive and Bigfoot. It is for his artwork that he is best known, however, with clients ranging from Fortean Times magazine to Rob Zombie via Iron Maiden and Cradle of Filth. Examples of his work can be seen on his website: http://www.mister-sam.com/

So, Mister Sam, here are your 5 questions on… Cryptozoology.

1) How did you first become interested in cryptozoology?

As far back as I can remember I've always had a fascination with the unknown and the unexplained in general. The supernatural, the paranormal and the occult are all subjects of which I've been brought up to understand are very real things indeed. I've been drawing monsters since I was three years old and spent alot of my childhood in the natural history departments of various museums... with eyes wide, mouth open and a sketchbook under my arm, usually seen standing underneath some great dinosaur skeleton. But I think it was seeing Operation Deep Scan at Loch Ness, (1987) on the televison/main news, that I really pricked up my ears and listened!

This was something that was yet unproven, unclassified... still unknown and yet people were going to great lengths with 24 boats all kitted out with sonar - sweeping the loch in search of the elusive and legendary monster!

That's when my attention became focused on the reality that there are many more out there across the globe... other 'monsters', unknown animals - creatures of legend seen by living people on land in the sea and in the air....

2) Have you ever personally seen a cryptid or secondary evidence of a cryptid, if so can you please describe your encounter?

Here's one of many.....

Location: Murdishaw, Runcorn, Cheshire, England.

It was a warm evening in the late spring of 1986, and I had been catching frogs and insects, as I often did, with a friend and a couple of empty jam jars. We’d gone as far as my Mum had usually allowed me to venture, which was the very edge of the woods, and had been chasing all manner of woodland creatures in and out of streams and bushes until it had begun to get dark.
We started to walk back across the grassy embankment that led all the way up to my Mum’s back garden… and then we heard it.

It started as a soft drone, then louder until the unmistakable sound of a buzzing insect was to be heard. Because the buzzing was so very loud we assumed it was a swarm of bees and so began to run. After a few paces, we stopped and looked around as we couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from and were in fear of running directly into it.

Then as I glanced across to the end of the nearest group of trees I saw what initially looked like a black and yellow model aeroplane hovering about twenty feet in the air, about fifty yards from where we had just run from and it was coming towards us.

I was confused and stood still until it got closer. I was almost convinced that I was about to see a model radio controlled aircraft and my eyes darted across the area on the ground expecting to see the controller… But there was nobody to be seen.

As it neared us, it became clear that this airborne ‘buzzer’ was in fact a huge insect resembling a dragonfly. To my knowledge dragonflies don’t ‘buzz’ loudly and to my knowledge the only dragonflies that could grow to the size of a model aircraft are prehistoric and long extinct.
But this one had a very obvious loud droning sound to it and was clearly alive and well.

It darted downwards and towards us just like regular territorial dragonflies and so naturally, we resumed our running only this time with justified urgency… I wasn’t sure what it could have done to harm us, but we weren’t going to stick around to find out!

With every other breath I turned my head and glanced back while still running as I was both in fear of how close it was and fascinated at the size of it. We ran steadily until we reached my Mums back garden. Then my final turn revealed that it had gone. It was almost as though it had vanished instantly, slipped through a prehistoric time hole or perhaps landed somewhere.

3) Which cryptids do you think are the most likely to be scientifically discovered and described some day, and why?

Number one has to be Bigfoot/Sasquatch among other man-beast-apes from around the globe.
I even have a bet with a freind that Bigfoot will turn up within the next ten years on the main news for real. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that there's a large hairy intelligent biped walking around in the forests of Northern America/Canada and as far as flung as Texas, Florida and New York.

I think it's ignorant, arrogant and simply stupid to even suggest that they are not out there. Around 200 sightings and hundreds more footprints, vocal recordings and hair samples are brought to the table each year. Far, far less people see wild snow leopards in ten years... do the maths.

It's a fact that in the state of Oregan alone there's around 300 'million' acres of forest that we have yet to explore... that's more than enough space for a large population to be living out there - quite happy - undiscovered... but it's only a matter of time.

The first time western science had a Gorilla on the table in London was in 1861. But it wasn't until 1920 that the first study of the great ape was conducted. The Gorilla is split into two species (still under debate) and four or five subspecies. This is a nice reflection of the various 'types' of giant man-apes seen around the world. Most notably the 'skunk ape' from Florida is more like an orangutan than the 'sasquatch' of Canada who are more like upright gorillas and so these two 'types' of 'bigfoot' may simply be subspecies or branches of the same giant ape along with their cousins from around the globe such as the Yeti of Tibet and the red man of China.

4) Which cryptids do you think are the least likely to exist?

What do I consider to NOT be a possible cryptid?

That's a hard question because we're faced with striking off animals that people have claimed to have seen. However, I think that the chupacabra is the most colourful with regards to its physical probability being very low as a possibility. There are no creatures outside the realms of science fiction and the fantasy worlds of the Greek myths that look anything like a chupacabra. Unless of course you mix a few species together. A porcupine with a cat and a bat and monkey perhaps... If they are real, and the descriptions turn out to be 100% accurate - I would be VERY suprised indeed. If they do exist, as with the local peoples who claim to see them, I don't believe they're animals of any kind... I'd have to think they were something paranormal, something alien to us, perhaps even demonic and from another dimension akin to the creatures in Lovecraftian tales.

5) If you had to pick your favourite cryptozoological book (not including books you may have written yourself) what would you choose?

Giants, Cannibals & Monsters - Bigfoot in Native Culture by Kathy Moskowitl Strain.
I bought this book in Willow Creek, California, at the bigfoot museum and I love it. It's an incredible source book for the Native American legends and more importantly, 'knowledge' of the giant man-apes' existance alongside man in the American forests long before any European settlers. Highly recommended!