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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...

Friday, April 15, 2011

CORINNA LINK

http://cryptochick.blogspot.com/2011/04/arrogant-bustard.html Great bustards, secretary birds and the Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology nearly exposing himself in public. Who could ask for anything more? And what has all this got to do with the Vodaphone HQ in Newbury?

IT IS FANTASTIC. I WANT ONE. BUT WHAT IS IT?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihQNRmxa-Ng

The embedding thingy doesn't work properly, more's the pity.

BIGFOOT VIDEO ANALYSIS

Rick from ParanormalBuffalo sent this:

Roger Marsh has video analysis of images filmed by a youngster on October 16, 2010, as revealed in: http://www.examiner.com/paranormal-news-in-national/bigfoot-video-boy-films-creature-backyard

ROYAL WEDDING VULGARITY

Well as most people who know me will know, I am a Royalist, and believe that we should keep our current dynastical Heads of State if only because it stops us having a politician at the top of the heap. And let's face it, if we were to have an elected ceremonial Head of State like they do in some countries, then the marching morons would end up voting for Robbie Williams, or some bint off a reality TV show.

However, I do abhor the appaling vulgarity that does seem to surround the Royals, especially at times like this knitted wedding party that I photographed the other night in Reading.

And this takes the proverbial biscuit.........

DING DONG BELLS: Olly's Made a Wels

...and for some reason it was wearing a top hat and a monocle, much to Prudence's consternation.

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1921 Sir Peter Ustinov was born. Ustinov stared in a great many films, including Logan's Run and as Poirot in Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, but it is universally agreed this film was his greatest work.

And now the news:

Polar bear Mercedes put to sleep

Chupacabra sighting in Goodyear?

Have you heard about that bat? Eats your goat and then your cat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVWLrloeToA

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

From CFZ Australia:

Bunyip immortalised in bronze

All this wombat needs is love

From Nick Redfern's blog:

Freeman & Russian Man-Beasts

WE ARE BACK!

We arrived back at just gone 1.00AM, and I am writing this whilst swigging a well earned cup of tea about ninety minutes later. The two talks went well, I think, and I enjoyed them immenseley. Plans are already afoot for me to do a slightly longer tour of Thames Valley libraries and other suitable venues next spring. I would like to see it becoming an annual thing for so long as I can managhe it healthwise.

Many thanks to Miriam from Reading Library (a CFZ Supporter of many years standing) for organising it, and to Heather from Wokingham Library for booking me. No doubt Corinna will describe the events in far more detail and in her own inimitable style in a day or two. We videoed both talks and as long as they are reasonable quality I will post them on CFZtv in a day or two...

Slainte

AN ADMINISTRATIVE NOTICE FROM DALE

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/04/upgrade.html

NEIL ARNOLD: The Hairy Hoax

Over the years there have been some fantastic, as well as downright silly April Fools pranks and hoaxes – from Richard Branson’s attempt to panic London residents in a UFO-shaped balloon, to the alleged reports of a serpent in the River Thames from the 1970s. One of my favourite hoax stories comes from Bluff Creek, California. Now, Bluff Creek has embedded itself into cryptozoological folklore after Patterson-Gimlin film in the late 1960s which purportedly showed a female Sasquatch.

A few years after the Bluff Creek movie the Spokane Chronicle, among others, in 1976 reported that a woman had been kidnapped in the nearby the legendary man-beast. When the woman was eventually found the Chronicle of 25th May ’76 ran the headline, ‘Hoax Is Seen in Kidnaping (sic) by Bigfoot’, with the reporter stating: ‘Eureka, Calif. ;- A young woman reported abducted in rugged mountains by a hairy, ape-like creature known as Bigfoot has shown up screaming outside a rural resort, apparently unhurt.

“She’s not in too bad a shape”, Humboldt County Sheriff Gene Cox said Monday night, adding that he believed the whole affair had been a hoax. Cox said Cherie Darvell, 23, of Redding, Calif, had some minor scratches and bruises on her arms, and told a nurse her left arm was hurt. She was taken to Humboldt Medical Center at Hoopa for examination shortly after she was found late Monday night. Miss Darvell appeared outside the Bluff Creek Resort, about five miles from where she was reported abducted on Saturday, Cox said. She was mumbling, “They wouldn’t stop and pick me up”, he said.

One of her tennis shoes was missing, but her clothing was clean and she smelled of perfume when found, Cox said. He reported that when investigators asked her if she had been abducted by the legendary monster, she began to scream and refused to answer any questions. “I still think it’s a hoax”, Cox said. “I still don’t believe that she was abducted by Bigfoot.” She was one of five members of an independent film crew trying to photograph Bigfoot, a creature reported (sic) sighted in this Northern California area many times in the past 20 years. The crew kept its cameras rolling while up to 150 persons conducted a search for the missing woman.’

On May 29th 1976 the Calgary Herald stated that the woman, despite remembering very little of her encounter, was hoping to take a lie detector test to prove that the alleged kidnap was genuine. Sheriff Cox stated that if could prove the incident was a hoax then he would press charges despite the fact that Miss Darvell had stuck to her story in which she claimed that whilst with a friend scattering marshmallows in a clearing, she was approached by a “big black beast”. Miss Darvell’s friend, 19-year old Kathi Bush was apparently knocked down the hill by the creature which then scooped up Cherie who then woke up in the night, alone in the forest.

Darvell told a reporter at the Redding Record, “I don’ think it meant to hurt me at all…It could have if it had wanted to”. Sheriff Cox believed that because the alleged victim smelled of perfume she could not have been in the presence of a hairy monster, but Darvell argued back that the smell of perfume had come from the woman at the Bluff Creek resort who came to aid her. “I smelled bad, let me tell you”, Darvell commented to the Herald. Cherie Darvell stated that after she wandered through forest all night she was lucky to find a highway where she sought help.