RAHEEL MUGHAL MSc: Congo: Lesser Known Mystery Beasts from the Heart of Darkness

I have always been fascinated by dinosaurs, palaeontology and zoology. I remember that I developed a deep interest in cryptozoology soon after hearing about the Mokele Mbembe on Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World (incidentally, I saw the re-run on Discovery Channel in the early 90s – I must have been 8 years old then); the idea that dinosaurs or dinosaur-like creatures may still exist in largely unexplored places on earth didn’t seem so odd any more.

However, when you get older and you start to see things a bit more logically (the sad truth of life; I wish I still had that wishful thinking streak that we all had when we were children).

Nevertheless, that being said there a number of other lesser known mystery animals with allegedly dinosaurian identities from in and around the Congo basin region. In this blog I will attempt to describe these creatures in more detail along with my own opinion on what the creatures may be based on my research. Please note that the Kasai Rex has not been included in the following discussion because there isn’t enough evidence to support its alleged existence.

(1) The Dodu: Gorilla Killer
The Dodu or Gorilla Killer is said to be a bloodthirsty 8-10 ft tall ape man, for it is said to decapitate and disembowel Gorilla’s and Chimpanzees. Locals live in fear of this monstrosity which is known to eat the maggots which are found soon after death in the abdominal cavity of its unfortunate simian victims, only to scoop them up in handfuls to eat, the dead apes serving only as reservoirs for the grubs to accumulate. Reports of this horrifying beast were collected by Dr. William Gibbons during his Operation Congo expedition during the early twenty first century.

(2) Emela Ntouka: A New Species of Forest Rhino?
Also known as "the killer of the elephants" in the Lingala language, is believed by some researchers and cryptozoologists to represent a relic population of Ceratopsian dinosaur – most notably Centrosaurus.

This particular cryptid is described as being as large as an African Bush Elephant. Having a body of similar shape and appearance to a rhinoceros, including one long horn on its snout and a heavy tail. It is described as being brown or grey in colouration and it is said to possess four short, stump-like legs supposedly to keep its bulky body at ground level. It is described as having no frill or ridges along the neck. The animal is also described as being semi-aquatic and herbivorous (with its favourite food being the leafy plants of the Malombo). The Emela-ntouka has been claimed to vocalize regularly, this noisy beast has been described as making calls that resemble a snort, rumble or growl, respectively. They are claimed to be solitary, herbivorous animals. The beast is said to inhabit the vast shallow waters of the Congo River Basin. The inhabitants of the area are said to treat the creature with great fear. In the 1930s an alleged Emela Ntouka was killed near Dongou.

The New Zealand Documentary World Mysteries included an interview with a man who claimed to have encountered a dead Emela Ntouka. He claimed to still possess the animal's horn, which he removed from the body. Unfortunately, the episode was filmed but never aired.

Nevertheless, there is considerable controversy to what an Emela Ntouka horn (if the creature does exist), could be made of, if scientists ever retrieve a horn it would also help in revealing the creature’s true identity. If a horn is found and DNA tests reveal the horn to be made of ivory, then it would undoubtedly prove to be a tooth. In fact a species of rhinoceros, namely the Asiatic One Horned Rhinoceros does possess small tusks. If on the other hand, the horn turns out to be made of keratin then it is most certainly belongs to an as yet unknown semi-aquatic rhinoceros. However, if the horn turns out to be made of bone then it most certainly belongs to an as yet hitherto unknown species of semi aquatic reptile or possibly a relic from the Mesozoic though I doubt this hypothesis along with other alleged dinosaurian survivals.

Moreover, in terms of evidence pertaining to the beast’s alleged survival a number of curious stone currency in the form of both Mokele Mbembe and Emela Ntouka has been found by archaeologists in this remote region, some native tribes still use it today.

(3) Giant Spiders: More than a Hollywood Myth?
Many Mokele Mbembe expedition members over the years have come back with tales of giant spiders. The Ba’Ka Pygmies of the Congo Basin Region and the Cameroons refer to them as J’Ba FoFi. They are described as having a leg-span of five to six feet and capable of killing many men. Moreover, they are said to make intricate blankets of web found throughout the deeper parts of the jungle to ensnare unwary potential prey.

(4) Mahamba: Cryptic Crocodiles!
From the humid and impenetrable jungles of the Congo (formally Zaire), come reports of the ‘Mahamba’, a lesser-known water monster from native Bobangi accounts. This fearsome beast is said to resemble a gigantic crocodile which is reported to reach an astounding 50 ft (15.2 metres) in length. Reports collected by cryptozoologist Dr. Roy Mackal during his 1980 expedition to hunt for the Mokele Mbembe (an alleged living sauropod dinosaur) also turned up amazing accounts of other alleged ‘prehistoric survivors,’ one of which is the Mahamba. According to eyewitness testimony from the Bobangi, the animal in question resembles a Nile Crocodile but it is not a ‘Nkoli’ (the native term for a Nile Crocodile). The creature may in fact pertain to a new species of undiscovered giant crocodile. That having been said, some researchers such as Dr. Mackal believe that the Mahamba indicates a ghost-lineage of a large freshwater variety of Mosasaur from the Late Cretaceous.

(5) Mbeilu-Mbeilu-Mbeilu: When is a Stegosaur not a Stegosaur?
The Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu is another lesser-known cryptid reported from the Likouala Region of the Republic of the Congo.

The creature is described as semi-aquatic, herbivourous and most notably having planks covered in algae growing out of its back. Some cryptozoological investigators tentatively suggest that it could represent a relic population of Kentrosaurus (Stegosaur from the Late Jurassic of Africa). However, I would liken it to a large turtle (Ndenki are purported to be large turtles living in Likoula region lakes, as we shall see later). Unfortunately, only a few claimed sightings have been reported, at the villages of Bounila and Ebolo, so if it did exist in one point in time, it may possibly be extinct. All reports of Mbeilu Mbeilu Mbeilu along with other Likoula Mystery Beasts were collected by Dr. Roy P. Mackal during his expeditions to the region.

(6) Mulilo: The Mighty Mollusc!
The Mulilo is described as a giant slug purported to live in the dense forests of the Congo, Zaire and Zambia. Not much is known about this mighty mollusc except that it is herbivorous, greyish-white to brown in colouration and tends to climb trees albeit at a slow pace. Nevertheless, it could be possible that such a creature does indeed exist. For example, one species of land snail, the Giant African Snail, can grow to be 15 inches (38 cm). So it is not that much of a stretch of the imagine to suggest that other land-dwelling molluscs can grow to be much larger than the Giant African Snail.

(7) Ndenki: Titantic Turtles in Lake Tele
Little is known about this particular cryptid other then the fact that it is described as a giant turtle and is said to inhabit more or less the same area as Mokele Mbembe, Emela Ntouka, Mbeilu-Mbeilu-Mbeilu, and Mahamba, respectively.

(8) Ngoima: The Monkey Eating Eagle
The Ngoima was seen by visiting French political commissioner André Mouelle during the early twentieth century. He described it as eagle-like, dark brown to black (black above, with a lighter shade below), and it is described as having a hooked beak. It is also described as having a wingspan of 9-13 ft (4.2 metres) and it said to possess sharp talons. Furthermore, it is said to prey on monkeys and small goats and is thought to prefer forests (where it nests on the tallest trees) and in some cases open savannah. Unfotunately, this is the only report that the author is aware off. Based on the somewhat detailed description above, the Ngoima may represent a subspecies of Martial Eagle Polemaetus bellicosus (the Ngoima having a larger wingspan at 9-13 ft as opposed to the Martial Eagle’s 5 ft).

(9) Ngoubou: Emela Ntouka’s Long Lost Cousin?
During one of William Gibbons expeditions to the Cameroon in search of the Mokele Mbembe, he and his team came across local reports of an elephant-sized, six-horned, herbivorous animal (similar in aspects to Emela-Ntouka) that fought elephants for land and that lived in the savannah region of that country. Gibbons likened the beast to a surviving form of Styracosaurus (a Late Cretaceous Ceratopsian Dinosaur from North America). When the local pygmies were questioned all asserted that Ngoubou was not a regular rhinoceros to which they were all familiar.

A senior hunter further exclaimed that a hunting party had killed one of these beasts with a spear a number of years ago. Moreover, the elder added that Ngoubou populations have declined over recent years owing to over hunting and that they have since become very hard to find.

(10)Nguma-monene: An African Naga?
Also known as Ngakoula-ngou or Badigui, in all aspects this serpentine cryptid sounds very similar to the Nagas reported for centuries in Asia. The Nguma-monene is described as being 10 metres long (atleast the tail part which is often reported), it is described as greyish-brown in colouration with the underneath of the neck a lighter shade. The neck is also described as being as thick as a man's thigh. Two credible eyewitness accounts exist which both occurred near the Dongu-Mataba (a tributary of the Ubangi River located in the Congo region). The first was occurred in 1961.

Nevertheless, in 1971 Joseph Ellis a pastor had an incredible encounter with a beast he could not identify. He estimated the length of the (visible) tailpart as 10 meters long (equal to his dugout, no neck or head could be seen), this was at a diameter of 0.5 to 1 metre. The colouration of the creature appeared to be a greyish-brown. When Pastor Ellis returned to the village he started asking natives about the strange creature, to his amazement it appeared that the subject was taboo. Dr. Roy, P. Mackal collected many reports of this and other cryptids whilst on his first and second expedition in search of Mokele Mbembe. Dr. Mackal concluded that the animal has a low-slung body, and therefore is more like a lizard than a snake, perhaps an intermediatery between snakes and lizards, a possible “living fossil.” Dr. Mackal also noted that the animal's triangular or diamond-shaped ridges were similar (but smaller) to those from the Mbeilu-Mbeilu-Mbeilu but not the animals themselves. This issue has caused much confusion on the Internet and Dr. Mackal’s seminal work A Living Dinosaur? In Search of Mokele-Mbembe.

Africa is a fascinating continent indeed and I am absolutely positive that a number of startingly new zoological discoveries will emerge from its dark heart – the Congo in years to come.

DALE DRINNON: KHMER (CAMBODIAN) BIGFOOT

When I was younger my father used to tell me folklores of giant apes stealing little girls and trying to breed with tme. And little boys who stayed out late at night would get attack by giant apes. Whatever I thought, until I read and article that they found bones in 1935 in east asia that might be proof of a bigfoot. But are they still alive?

The name for the bigfoot is Gigantopithecus blacki

At the time of the discovery, during the 1930s, von Koenigswald was working primarily in Java, unearthing fossils of human ancestors and their relatives. China's unique fossil shops had already played a major role in tracking down Homo erectus, which lived in Asia between about one million and 300,000 years ago. Homo erectus remains were first unearthed in Java in the 1890s, but pursuit of the source of dragon bones subsequently led to a system of fossil-filled crevices and caverns near the town of Zhoukoudian (Choukoutien), thirty miles from Beijing. There, in 1929, a team of Chinese and Western scientists discovered the first of a series of Homo erectus skulls that became world famous as "Peking man."

The original fossils of Peking man disappeared during the confusion of World War II - fortunately, after they were described and cast by anatomist Franz Weidenreich. The war also caught up with von Koenigswald, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Java. His precious collection of Gigantopithecus teeth - at that point, the only known specimens of the fossil ape - spent the war years in a milk bottle buried in a friend's backyard on the island.



Photographed at the American Museum in the 1940's, German paleoanthropologists Ralph von Koenigswald, left, and Franz Weidenreich, right, pose with the skulls of apes, Homo erectus, and modern humans. The first scientist to discover teeth of Gigantopithecus, von Koenigswald correctly observed that they belonged to an ape, while Weidenreich argued for their humanlike characteristics.







Gigantopithecus compared to human jaw bone

At a Chinese pharmacy in Bangkok, the author (center) and archeologist John Olsen (right) search among the medicinal "dragon teeth" for interesting fossils.




A reconstruction of Gigantopithecus by Russell Ciochon and Bill Munns. Munns is shown here with “Giganto.†Russell Ciochon, U of Iowa







standing about ten feet Gigantopithecus is said to might have lived with humans.


khmer performing as the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, but it could be a dance of a white Gigantopithecus?


Sightings have been seen to this day from Malaysia, vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. Some say it was humans (mon-khmers?) building huts and crops that pushed Gigantopithecus to migrate to other regions. Conflicts and fear may have caused them to slowly die out. But even still more sightings have been seen. In Malaysia a team is looking for proof when a logger saw one sitting in his hut. In the Ratanakiri region a herbologist have said to seen one in the jungle. In the vietnam war, viet soldiers have said to be seen one in the junlges running away. Could all these sightings and stories be true, could Gigantopithecus the Cambodian bigfoot be still alive?

July 22nd, 2006 6:55pm

Asked my parents about them earlier.

My parents and a group of about 10 other people saw an entire community of them, about 15, 5 or 6 adults and the rest adolescents, and a couple babies hanging onto there mothers.

My parents were hiding out on Phnom Sompov during the Vietnamese Invasion, when they saw a line of these kingkongs just down the mountian heading west about 300 meters away, before they dissapered into the forest. Everyone was on top of the mountian when they saw these apes on flat ground below.

Other parties, saw the same thing at different times in different locations around Phnom Sompov. so there couold be many waves of them passing by.


[Message last modified 07-22-2006 06:45pm by Point_Dexter]

July 23rd, 2006 2:41am

Angkor Wat

One of the greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say can't

From: Massachusetts
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 4255

Asked my Mom for some clarification. She said her Father was stationed out in the Ratanak Kiri area for military service, and her entired family went there with him. It was in that region, before noon. She said she was taking lunch to her Father on the way to school.

She also mentioned that the "monkeys" were so big, she thought they were people from the indigenous tribes. She said that they could have shredded her up and eaten her. She described them as walking on two legs upright. I showed her a picture of what KhmerGhost posted and she said that they look similar to that picture.

[Message last modified 07-23-2006 04:44pm by antiquated]

July 23rd, 2006 11:39pm

Khmerghost
Angkor Thom

KHMER UNITY

Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 664

Khmerghost

KHMER UNITY

Registered: Feb 2002

Thanks for the story. I've been collecting stories for my reviews. So far your story isn't new from khmers viets and laos, seems alot of people have seen them as soon as they were forced to run to the jungles for cover.

Ratanak Kiri and Malaysia is the hot spot. I've mapped some stories out and it seems to be in the edge of Ratanak Kiri. Very interesting story thanks, I'm going to log it in. By the way, has there been any Giganto. fossils ever found in Cambodia?

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They've found some fossils in Siem Riep market and Bangkok. The first fossil was found in China, but they mapped it out and concluded that they were living around the Tonle Sap region fishing and eating. Fossils are really hard to find and since Cambodia just opened to international market it's become the hot spot for research. So many new species that never were seen are popping up left and right.

'Bigfoot' excitement builds in Malaysia

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Excitement is mounting in Malaysia over claims of "Bigfoots" are lurking in its southern jungles, with wildlife experts on the hunt for the mythical beast and a telephone hotline set up to report sightings.

Bigfoot fever erupted last month when some fish farm workers claimed to have spotted three of the beasts - two adults and a youngster, on the edge of a forest reserve in southern Johor state.

Their improbable tale was lent some authority soon after when an Orang Asli - an indigenous ethnic group known for their expertise in the jungle, also said he had stumbled across one of the legendary ape-men.

"He saw the creature which was hairy and brownish in colour, it was about 12 feet [four metres] tall," Johor National Parks director Hashim Yusoff said.

"It was not aggressive, but the Orang Asli was startled by the creature and ran away.

"My personal feeling is that there is a possibility it could be what we call in Malaysia the 'mawas' ... more of a primate.

"But we don't deny the sightings," he said, insisting that the Orang Asli "do not lie".

"We've got to prove it and we've got to do it scientifically."

Quest

Wildlife authorities have embarked on a quest to verify the claims, and are considering mounting camera traps to capture images of anything roaming the jungles.

After a month of fruitless searching and interviews with people living near the forests, a telephone hotline has now been set up for members of the public who claim to have seen the beast to relate their stories, Mr Hashim said.

"Our main aim is to identify the information source, whether it is credible or not," he told AFP.

The Malaysian press has given prominent coverage to reports of sightings, including some which date back decades, and printed photographs of supposed footprints - vague impressions in the mud and leaves on the jungle floor.

Johor is home to large tracts of jungle, including its famed Endau-Rompin National Park, and unconfirmed sightings of large creatures surface periodically there.

Proof elusive

Former zoologist Amlir Ayat said this week that he had come close to finding proof of the existence of Bigfoot five years ago after villagers claimed to have shot a huge hairy creature in the jungles of neighbouring Pahang state.

"The creature fell to the ground with a great thud and the villagers took to their heels. Later, when they returned to check if it was dead, they found the body still lying there," he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

Dr Amlir said he was only told of the shooting a year later. He and the villagers mounted a search for the remains of the creature but found none.

"By then, loggers had moved into the site and cleared the ground," he said.

"The evidence was gone."

Vincent Chow, an adviser to Johor's Malaysian Nature Society who has been lobbying the government to look into the claims, dismissed the sceptics who insist the "sightings" have been manufactured to lure tourists to Johor.

"There's a lot of excitement, a lot of people are coming in with their own stories," he said.

Sightings of mythical ape-like creatures have been reported in wilderness areas all over the world.

They are known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch in the United States and Canada, and yetis in the Himalayas.

____________________________________________________From Ivan T. Sanderson, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, 1961, Chapter 16 "Our Revered Ancestors"

The two remaining types of ABSMs, the Neo-Giants and the Meh-Tehs, present us with problems altogether different from any that we have so far encountered. Here, we come to the real core of the matter. These are the Dzu-Teh, Tok, Gin-Sung, Sasquatch, Oh-Mah... type on the one hand, and the Meh-Teh... on the other. We may well call these the "Inevitable No-men."

What could the Neo-Giants be and why should they have the apparently extraordinary distribution that they are alleged to have? At first both questions sound unanswerable but both are really amenable to very simple suggestions. Some years ago (1937) one Dr. von Koenigswald was searching through bottles of old fossil bones and teeth in a Chinese apothecary's store in Hong Kong when he came across a human molar tooth that was at least ten times in volume that of any ever grown by a man. And thus started the affair of what has been named Gigantopithecus, an enormous something, that once inhabited south China and left its bones in limestone caves. The controversy about this creature has been extensive and intense. Dr. Koenigswald's associate, Prof. Weidenreich, named the tooth Gigantopithecus, which means the giant "monkey" or by license "ape," rather than Gigantothropus or the Giant Man, because he was a very conservative and ultra-cautious soul. However, even before further remains of the brute had been found, other leading scholars stated that it was misnamed and was definitely a Hominid. [I had the privilege of examining the tooth all one afternoon in the American Museum of Natural History, and comparing it with the molars of all manner of men, current and fossil, and with apes, and for what my opinion is worth, it is certainly most strongly hominid.]

The tooth remained a ghastly enigma until 1956 when a Chinese farmer by the name of Chin Hsiu-Huai dug guano out of a cave in a mountain named Luntsai in Szechwan and spread it on his field. In this was found a part of a jaw with teeth of the same kind. Dr. Pei Wen-Chung, doyen of Chinese anthropologists, set up a prolonged search and found some fifty more teeth and, allegedly, a number of limb bones of the creature. He said that these indicated that it was a 12-foot tall, bipedal, carnivorous [sic] ape, than which there could hardly be a longer list of non sequiturs. Its teeth are utterly human, not just humanoid or hominid; if it walked erect, it was not an ape not at that size and weight; and if it was carnivorous [which its teeth do not at all indicate] it was, again, not an ape as that seems to be just about the only distinguishing thing about the diet of that group they are all profoundly herbivorous, though gibbons will take insects.

The other question debated about this brute has been whether [if it is not an ape but a Hominid], it belongs with the Pithecanthropines of North China and Java to wit: Sinanthropus, Pithecanthropus, and the giant Meganthropus. This is not really very important to us but the manifest fact that it was a Hominid and not a Pongid is so, and leads to certain potent observations. If it was really that size, or even over six feet tall, it must have been a terrestrial creature, and if it was an ape it would have walked on all fours like the gorilla. Nothing that size can travel by treetops. If it was not an ape, it started out with the hominid type of foot, which is what is called plantigrade, and neither it nor its ancestors ever needed to develop a specialized great toe, which was opposed and worked like a thumb. Thus, this creature, primitive as it may have been, probably had a very human type of foot on which to support its immense bulk. Whatever it was, it lived in what is now southern China.

Now let us look at Map X. This area is a part of Orientalia, and is today subtropical. The mountains that surround it are those of the Indo-Chinese Massif and of the Szechwan Block. These areas are the lands of the Dzu-Tehs, Toks, Kung-Lus, and Gin-Sungae the huge, furred "bear-men" or "men-bears" of ancient Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan legend and of current ABSM lighters. But then comes another thing. What else lives in and previously lived in this area? This is the land of the Metasequoia, of the raccoons called pandas, of certain curious little insectivorous mammals, of several odd amphibians, and of numerous invertebrates including a lot of most rare and odd parasitic forms. And where else, if anywhere, are any of these or their only relatives found today? In the northwestern part of North America!

There is still a continuous causeway of mountains from Szechwan all the way [to the west of China proper] to and through Manchuria to eastern Siberia. Because of increasing altitude toward the south (see Chapter 18), this is clothed in the same type of montane forest all the way. The same kinds of forest start again on the other side of the paltry Bering Strait, in Alaska, and continue on down in an almost unbroken chain to Tierra del Fuego at the very bottom end of South America. Moreover, sometime during the recent ice-advances and retreats, all manner of Siberian animals crossed over to the New World ”like the Brown Bears, the Moose, the Elk, and others; and finally, the Amerinds, and then the Eskimos, did so too. Why on earth, should or could not a large sub-hominid also have done so, and simply by following the richly stocked montane forests all the way? That low temperatures could have prevented or even dissuaded them from doing so is just not valid, for, if the Dzu-Tehs are their living representatives, they can travel in snow without any trouble, and crossing the Bering Straits [even without a land-bridge due to alterations in sea level or elevation of the land], is no problem, for you can always walk across the ice in winter. It looks, therefore, very much as if Bernard Heuvelmans might have been right when he suggested that the largest type of ABSM in northern Orientalia could be a descendant of the Gigantopithecus, and the bolder his suggestion seems now, when it is realized that at that time (1952) the consensus was that that creature was an ape.

JON ISN'T WELL, AND ONCE MORE HE STAYS BACK AT THE HOTEL

I am not very well at the moment. Emails will get to me, but I am out of action most of the day leaving Graham and Corinna in charge. I do the blogs the previous evening now and Graham posts them in the morning. Hopefully I will be back in the saddle by next week when Graham makes his annual pilgrimage to worship at the sacred altar of Hawkwind..

Neil Arnold's all-new monster/ghost walks

Fed up of 'Most Haunted' ? Tired of dull movies such as 'Paranormal Activity' ? Then join monster-hunter extraordinaire, Neil Arnold on his all new monthly ghost-walks.

On the last Sunday of every month, 7.30pm, Neil will be conducting walks through historic Rochester, bringing back the atmosphere of Charles' Dickens musings, with a tour of the cobbled streets, dank back alleys and ancient buildings.

From haunted shops, restaurants and pubs, to the Gothic cathedral and eerie monk's vineyard, Neil will entertain with ghastly yarns of witches, ghosts, monsters and murder, introducing the public to a variety of spine-chilling and original spook tales. Hags, hellhounds, river monsters, big cats and spectres are on the menu and at just £4.00 a head this could be the best money you've spent for a long while. www.hauntedrochester.blogspot.com

And to read an interview with Neil visit: http://www.rochesterpeople.co.uk/groups/generaldiscussion/Count-Von-Dickens-Presents-Rochester-Ghost-Walk/story-10344235-detail/story.html

On the second Sunday of every month (2 - 4 pm) Neil will be venturing onto Britain's most haunted location, Blue Bell Hill, with bizarre stories concerning eight-foot high red-eyed humanoids, giant phantom dogs, flying jellyfish, sinister hags, big cats, ancient stones and the local 'phantom hitchhiker', proving that the legends you've heard about which are connected to the hill are completely false and that the truth is far stranger than the fiction created by the media. www.bluebellhillghostwalk.blogspot.com for more info.

JON AND CORINNA IN THE BIDEFORD POST

GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME

I don't know which is more extraordinary - the news or the way that it has been presented. Maybe I am just becoming an old git faster than I expected..

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1965 the Kecksburg UFO incident occurred when a fireball was seen streaking across the skies of North America. The object crash-landed in woods near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, USA and witnesses reported that it was almost as big as a Volkswagen Beetle and had funny writing like Hieroglyphs on the side. The original explanation given by the American Air force was that it was just a meteor and no debris was ever found; however, in December 2005 NASA released a statement confirming that it had actually been a downed Russian satellite and they had examined the debris at the time.

And now, the news:

Hormone makes meerkats more cooperative

Mountain gorilla numbers have increased, census re...

Thousands of plant species 'undiscovered in cupboa...

Mistletoe could vanish within 20 years, says Natio...

Elephants trample man to death

A new threat to Hawaiian monk seals: Cat parasite ...

A very cute monk seal video, enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rbxphShLNE