THAT ICELAND RIVER MONSTER AGAIN

The other day we posted a story about a purported river monster in Iceland. Dale Drinnon was less than impressed and said that in his opinion it was some kind of mechanical construct. Independently, Loren Coleman said much the same thing over on cryptomundo.

I have no axe to grind either way on the subject, although I have to admit that the idea of a mechanical toy wasn't the first thing to come into my mind. However, I was surprised to see quite how many websites now carry the story...

Is This Iceland's Loch Ness Monster?
ABC News (blog)
The alleged monster, known as Lagarfljótsormurinn, Iceland's version of Scotland's Loch Ness Monster, has been a part of Icelandic folklore since 1345. The story goes that the mythical creature has lived in the 25-mile long and 376-feet deep Lagarfljót ...See all stories on this topic »

Iceland's Loch Ness Monster? [Video]
Long Island Press
By Maria Vultaggio on February 9th, 2012 We have all heard tales about the Loch Ness Monster: what it looks like, where it lives and of its enormous size. But is sea-serpent actually real? New footage of the sea-serpent has surfaced so you can decide ...See all stories on this topic »

'Iceland Worm Monster': Video Proof of Iceland's Loch Ness?
International Business Times
According to legend, the 25-mile-long 367-foot-deep Lake Lagarfljót is home to the worm, Iceland's answer to the Loch Ness Monster. Tales of Lagarfljót date back to the 14 th century. As the story goes, the monster grew from a tiny worm to a fierce sea ...See all stories on this topic »
International Business Times

Lagarfljot river worm sighting video: Icelandic Loch Ness Monster, or fishing net?3News NZA video which some say proves the existence of Iceland's answer to the Loch Ness Monster has sparked fierce debate in the country. The footage shows what looks like a creature swimming in the Jokulsa River. It is believed, by many, to be a legendary ...See all stories on this topic »
3News NZ

Is This Iceland's Loch Ness Monster? - World News - ABC News Radio
By Joshua Cohan
World News and Headlines From ABC News Radio.World News - ABC News Radio

Iceland's Loch Ness Worm Monster Real Or Hoax? Mediaite
By Nando Di Fino
Cryptozoology translates, loosely, into the study of hidden animals. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra -- these are the big ones. But what about the minor cryptids? The ones that are the subject of obscure folklore? The Gnome of ...Mediaite

Is This Iceland's Loch Ness Monster? - ABC News
Does the fabled Loch Ness monster of Iceland really exist? Scientists are skeptical. But a new video alleged to have captured images of the monster has gone ...
abcnews.go.com/blogs/.../is-this-icelands-loch-ness-monster/

Iceland's Loch Ness monster: Giant 'serpent-like sea creature ...
The video, captured last week by Hjörtur Kjerúlf, shows a mysterious creature swimming through the cold water of the glacial river Jökulsá í Fljótsdal, in east ...
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Icelands-Loch-Ness-monster-Giant-se...

Iceland's Loch Ness monster? - The ...
Alleged Iceland river worm caught on tape Read more by Felipe Maya on CBS News' The Feed Blog.www.cbsnews.com/8301...162.../icelands-loch-ness-monster/

Iceland's Loch Ness Worm Monster: Real Or Robot? (VIDEO)
Something that looks very much like a giant snake -- or worm -- is slithering its way out of Iceland and causing viral speculation around the Internet.
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../icelands-loch-ness-worm-monster...

Video: Iceland's 'Loch Ness' monster ...Iceland's 'Loch Ness' monster spotted? Amateur footage claiming to show proof of Iceland's answer to the Loch Ness monster - a gigantic mythical river worm ...www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Icelands-Loch-Ness-monster-spotted...

Iceland's Loch Ness monster?
CBS News
(CBS) - A video which allegedly captured the Loch Ness monster of Iceland - better known as the Lagarfljot river worm -- has quickly become an Internet sensation. The footage, taken by local resident Hjortur Kjerulf and published on Icelandic ...

Loch Ness Monster in Iceland? Giant Serpent-Like Creature on Video ...
Gather.com
Does Iceland have its own Loch Ness Monster? A video captured a giant serpent-like creature swimming in a Icelandic river giving rise to the comparison. Some people watched the footage, and saw the country's mythical creature called Lagarfljótsormurinn ...

Caught on camera - Icelandic monster or fishing net?
Herald Sun
Cameraman captures footage of giant serpentine creature Footage could show the mythical "Icelandic worm monster" But sceptics say it's just a floating fishing net IT'S the cooler, more socially progressive cousin of the Loch Ness monster, ...

JON'S JOURNAL: Moss gardens, new ponds, and pawprints

On thursday Prudence took me and Corinna for another walk, this time along the lane which leads from Huddisford woods to Ashcroft farm - an area which has had far more than its share of big cat sightings over the past few years. Interestingly, two different mystery cats have been reported over the years; one larger and black, and the other smaller and brown. One one occasion they were seen together.

It is this dichotomy of sightings which is one of the anomalies which has inspired Di Francis to come up with her controversial theory about a putative species of indigenous British big cat - one which exhibits a marked display of sexual dimorphism.

Here we should stress that the hairs found by Andrew Perry et al in 2010 were incontravertably those of a leopard, and furthermore one of the sub-Saharan subspecies.

It was still bloody cold as we walked along the lane, but everywhere you looked there were attractive displays of mosses and lichens. I have always been fascinated by these primitive plants ever since when - as a boy on holiday in the New Forest during the winter of 1963/4, my mother used to take me out for walks collecting mosses that she used to put into soup bowls and make into tiny moss gardens.

The Huddissford end of our walk leads past a part of the forestry plantation which was felled last year, and it is interesting to see how the newly corrugated terrain created by mechanical diggers, tractors etc is starting to form new ponds. Will they become stagnant and barren? Or will they provide invaluable oasises for the local wildlife. I can't wait to find out..

And finally, with all the talk of big cat prints on the blog, here are two footprints from the layby where we parked the car before embarking on our journey. The top one was made by Prudence, the other one not...

Today's music is pretty obvious really. I can't find a live version of it so you will have to do with the 1977 studio one..

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: ANCIENT PHOENICIAN KNOWLEDGE OF PERU

On Tuesday Feb 7th I went to the Local Studies Library and Archives in Bolton,near Manchester to do research for the forthcoming Mystery Animals of Greater Manchester book.

Whilst looking through a scrap book I came across a cutting from around the mid Nineteenth Century,from an un-named Bolton newspaper, concerning a “remarkable discovery” of a stone commemorating the arrival,in Guayaquil, Peru, of some Phonecians in the year 9 or 10 of the reign of Hiram,of Tyre who reigned from 980-947BC and allied himself with King David of Israel, and is mentioned in 2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Kings 5 :1;1 Chronicles 14:1; 1 Kings 9: 13; Amos 1:9 (1) Though to be honest the cutting said he was ruler of Egypt.


1. Wikipedia King Hiram 1

YER JAMAICA POND MONSTER

One of the most important jobs of the CFZ Bloggo network is to chronicle and preserve all the media accounts of mystery animals from around the world. Some are more important than others, whilst some, I think it is fair to say, are safe to ignore

http://jamaicapondmonster.blogspot.com/

HAUNTED SKIES: Times (The) 29.1.59.

http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2012/02/times-29159.html

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/
On this day in 1938 the BBC produced the first TV sci-fi series, an adaptation of the play P.U.K. which had coined the term ‘Robot’.

And now the news:

BIG CAT STORIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
World's Highest-Pitched Primate Calls Out Like a B...
Researcher Finds Surprisingly Low Fish Biodiversit...
These Are the Earliest Human Paintings Ever
Oil exploration survey spots 17 blue whales off co...
Scared of a Younger Rival? Not for Some Male Songb...
US bat killer strikes in Europe
Hear This: Ship Noise Stresses Whales
Piltdown Man: British archaeology's greatest hoax
Maryland Man Admits To Turtle Trafficking Online ...
Pakistan Whale Shark's Death a Mystery
When the gorillas came visiting....
Disease eradication costs lives of 11,000 trees

Best robot… Ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQqeidrlDyw

BIG CAT NEWS: Today's stories

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper column inches than any other cryptozoological subject.

There are so many of them now that we feel that we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.

It takes a long time to do, so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD

Forget Gloucestershire big cats - 'lion' spotted near M5
This is Gloucestershire

CONCERNED callers alerted county police to more than 60 suspected big cat sightings in seven years – including a lion next to the M5 motorway. Gloucestershire Constabulary figures show they received 61 calls about what people believed were big cats in ...
Read on...

The big story today seems to be that of a Bristol barber who took a photograph that may have been of a big cat. The picture, however, as you can see, shows a very blurred print that may be from a felid but can't really be seen as conclusive evidence. At the risk of appearing cynical it looks as if the newspapers are jumping on the big cat bandwagon in an attempt to follow on from the big story in The Sun earlier this week.

Is this evidence of a big cat stalking Mendip Hills near Bristol?
This is Bristol
A BRISTOL barber believes he may have captured the paw print of a big cat stalking hills south of Bristol. Luigi Armato, 32, a barber in the city centre, snapped the print on his phone near the village of Binegar in the Mendip hills while out on a...
Read on...

The same story has appeared in two of the national daily papers (see below)

THE large print of a clawed paw is preserved in mud — the latest evidence of ...
The Sun
Now it's the Beast of Bristol: Giant paw print spotted in hills surrounding city
Daily Mail

We include the above links for the sake of completeness

In the very north of the UK, a series of sheep kills has prompted the locals to believe that a mystery cat not seen for some years has returned:

Has 'Skerray Beast' struck here again?
Sutherland Northern Times
And now, the people of Farr are wondering if the large puma-like cat has returned. The beast's modus operandi, marking it off from local scavengers or predators, was its ability to skin its prey every bit as neatly as any human being could.

Read on...



And also in Scotland...

Expert on prowl to solve 'big cat' mystery
Ross-Shire Journal
By Hector MacKenzie
This image shot by Lisa Sydenham of Tain, sparked a flurry of interest amongst big cat enthusiasts. THE mystery of a panther-like big cat spotted by a series of credible Ross-shire witnesses has been revisited by an acknowledged...
Read on...

I am not sure what to make of this picture. There doesn't seem to be any frame of reference so that one can tell the size, but the creature does seem very muscled. Perhaps a domestic moggy that has been eating steroids? I am basically joking here but would be interested to see what other people think of this picture.



And finally, Hinckley in Leicestershire was shocked recently by the discovery of the head of a muntjac in a tree. Was it the work of a big cat?

Mystery of the severed head on Burbage Common is solved
Hinckley Times
DOG walkers and others wanting to enjoy the picturesquely frosty scenes on Burbage Common can now do so without fear of a big cat attack. The mystery surrounding how a muntjac deer's head ended up in a tree has been solved - by the person who put it...

Nope: it was a bloke out walking his dog. His dog found it, and the owner took it away from the dog and put it in the tree to keep it away from the dog. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of stories are as simple as this if you dig hard enough.

COLDWATER FISH THAT NEED A LICENSE IN THE UK

I know that quite a few readers are fishkeepers, and if you are over fifty (like yours truly) you probably remember the days when you could buy things like bitterling and bullhead catfish in pet shops. Now you can't. And it is all the fault of Tony Blair...

http://www.prestopets.co.uk/emailnewsletters/nonnativefish.pdf


Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ictalurus_punctatus.jpg

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From Nick Redfern's "There's Something in the Woods...":

• British Big Cats: A Photo And A Story — An intriguing story from Neil Arnold...
• Monsters of Virginia — A new book on Mysterious Creatures in the Old Dominion...

From CFZ Australia:

• Chasing Blue Mountains yowies - a flashback! — A great feature from a few years ago...
• Whitening strikes wombats twice in Ceduna — A second albino wombat has turned up...

DALE DRINNON: Long necked seal, plastic eaters, oldest dogs, giant skulls, and a new chunk of 'Cedar and Willow'

Even by Dale's high standards today's postings are a bumper crop:

New on the Frontiers of Zoology, about that Longnecked seal...
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/longnecked-seals-case-of-miossing.html

also
Not exactly Cryptozoology, but should be of interest to everyone:

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/plastic-eaters.html

New on the Frontiers of Anthropology:
http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2012/02/controversy-over-oldest-dogs.html

and

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2012/02/giants-skulls.html

And the next background chunk for Cedar and Willow has also been posted:
http://cedar-and-willow.blogspot.com/2012/02/fantastic-journeys-from-seventies.html

BIG CAT NEWS: Nigel Wright on the South Lakelands big cat

BBC EXPERT STATES THAT SOUTH LAKELANDS BIG CAT "MAY EXIST"

The every continuing saga of the south Lakelands big cats took a other turn today.

BBC TV wildlife expert Chris Packham, the presenter of the “ springwatch” programme, today was quoted as stating that, given the terrain of the countryside, in the South Lakelands, and the capacity of big cats to both survive and hide without detection, that a big cat could exist in this area.

For those that believe that such cats do indeed roam this area, then such a statement, from a well-known animal expert, is a very big feather in their caps. At last, the subject seems to be getting the seriousness that it truly deserves.

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/9516533._Big_cat__could_be_out_there_in_South_Lakeland__says_TV_expert/

So, there you go!…Now even then established, well known “experts” are coming around to the same ideas that some of us, have already known for many years..These big cats are really out there!..and have been for many, many years…..