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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...

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

LINDSAY SELBY: Do cryptozoological creatures smell terrible?

There are lots of reports of smelly cryptids. The Skunk Ape is the one that springs to mind immediately.

Skunk-apes are hairy humanoids sighted in many areas of North America, but especially in swamp areas and the consistent characteristic ascribed to skunk apes is the smell. It is said to be an extreme odour that is nauseating. See report below:

Skunk Ape: Area's own stinky Big Foot -Something stinky in the swamp

By Eliot Kleinberg Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 02, 2009

It supposedly hides in muddy, abandoned alligator caves, thus the smell. For more than two centuries, people have sworn they saw it dash across the Everglades or retreat from a rural road.In Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, barking dogs, petrified security guards and bug-eyed kids bear testament.There are photographs, grainy and distant, but attested to by their bearers. More than 75 sightings were reported in Florida in the past two decades. The scare had started when an amateur archaeologist claimed he'd seen the thing in southwest Florida's Big Cypress Swamp.But it was concentrated locally in the 1970s, when South Florida then had more open space and about half the people it does now. A local dispatcher said he was advising lawmen that locals were so jumpy the cops should identify themselves when they approached homes."I know it exists," Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputy Marvin Lewis said in 1980.He said he and fellow deputy Ernie Milner made some 50 forays to the wild. They said they shot something in 1974 west of Lantana that grunted and fled back to the dark. Another time, they found mysterious hair on a barbed-wire fence. Lewis put in 27 years and retired in 1997. He hasn't changed his mind. He said recently that any along the coast were long ago driven west by encroaching civilization."I couldn't point to a photo and say, 'That's what I saw,'" he said. "But cops act on investigation and evidence. full story:




http://www.palmbeachpost.com/npost/content/neighborhood/npall/epaper/2009/04/02/npall_posttime_0402.html



see also report of smelly bigfoot: http://www.psican.org/alpha/index.php?/20080830112/Cryptozoology/TheSmell-Of-Sasquatch.html


The Guiafairo of Senegal is described as a giant bat that is very smelly, and even sea creatures have been described as stench-making:

Seen in Burra Haaf – In Waters in the area in the 1900s -Several reports of a creature with a sail-like body and a flipper on the end of its nose exist in this region of water off the Shetland Isles. A fishing crew who encountered it stated the beast destroyed several of their nets, and came so close to their boat they could detect a pungent stench.

So what is it with smell? Well, all animals smell to us: the odour of wet dog or wet cat is pretty bad. But if smell is an indication a cryptid may be near, it is a good tracking device and should perhaps be one that should be taken more seriously. Next time you smell something awful when out in a boat or in the countryside, investigate it; it could be that something cryptozoological is passing that way.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ivan Sanderson said at one point, "ALL Animals stink", including human beings.

In the case of the Shetlands sea monster, Heuvelmans has that one down as a basking shark sighting. And in the case of most "Abominable Snowmen", when you pin witnesses down, most of them are actually saying that the excrement clings to the body hair and gives that lingering odor of feces. Some of the sightings even specify that one alarm reaction is that the hairy hominid takes a dump right at that moment when it is spotted by the witness. It is an effective deterrant against any closer approach by the witness, by all accounts.

borky said...

Lindsay, it depends on what you mean by terrible.

For instance, d'you think Americans stink of Americanness?

Once upon a time, apparently, the Japanese did, and one of the greatest difficulties they had with being conquered by them was after World War II there were all these towering gaijin throwing their weight about all over the country, stinking of the curdled stench of 'bata' - butter - a smell they apparently they found so repellent it caused many to vomit.

I also read recently of an individual who's addicted to masturbating while nakedly cavorting in farm slurry.

I dare say he might actually get off on the smell of the Abominable Snowman's hypothetical cack-caked fur.

I'm not - so to speak - choking your slurry-spattered chicken with these observations, merely pointing out while the subject's complex and highly subjective, you may well be onto something of primordial sensory significance.