CRYPTOZOOLOGY ONLINE: Still on the Track: 07/03/13

WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

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...

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

NEWSFLASH: Earthquake in Sumatra

A few minutes ago I read an email from Steve Jones telling me that there has been an earthquake in Sumatra and that over twenty people have been killed. I have heard nothing from Richard, Adele and Christophe, nor do I expect to, and there is no way that I can get in touch with them.

The epicentre of the earthquake seems to be in Aceh (A) which is about 1,000 miles from Kerinci Seblat (B) where the expedition is underway. As far as I am aware there is no earthquake damage reported from that part of the island, so I hope and pray that they are OK.

Back in 2007, when the CFZ expedition to Guyana was underway, there was a minor skirmish between Guyana and (as far as I remember) Venezuela. The British tabloids elevated the status of this minor incident to that of a small war, and cryptopundits who really should have known accused me of "putting CFZ explorers lives at risk by not recalling them immediately", conveniently ignoring the fact that there was no way that I could have done so. The same applies now. I am not in contact with the team, and do not expect to hear from Richard again until he gets back to Singapore airport, late next week.

In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are with them, and I promise that should I hear anything I will let you all know.

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.

DALE DRINNON: Pristichampsus, yeti, Frontiers of Anthropology, Benny's Blogs

New at the Frontiers of Zoology:

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/07/pristichampsus-tim-morris-envisions.html

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/07/yeti-hair-dna-that-of-unknown-species.html

New at the Frontiers of Anthropology:

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2013/07/gobekli-tepe-constellations.html

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2013/07/atlantis-and-pleistocene-island-syndrome.html

New at Benny's other blog, the Ominous Octopus Omnibus:

http://bennypdrinnon.blogspot.com/2013/07/sammy-terry-obituary.html

(And BTW I just got a notice from Elvira about Sammy Terry's death on Facebook. Horror Movie Hosts stick together, its like a big family)

Best Wishes, Dale D.

PS, Currently there is an error message at the FOA blog entries but I am working to get it fixed.

CRYPTOLINK: Bigfoot skull fossil is a amateur mistake of wishful thinking

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me.

“I found a fossilized Bigfoot skull.”

A journalist can go his or her entire life waiting to hear those six magic words. And yet, on a recent weekday afternoon, that very thing happened.

Todd May, of Ogden, dropped by the offices of the Standard-Examiner to see if someone would be interested in a story about a fairly impressive fossil find. After showing off a couple of digital photos, May offered six even more compelling words — “Do you want to see it?” — followed by the motherlode of sentences: “It’s out in the trunk of my car.”

May says he found it in the mouth of Ogden Canyon, Utah. He thinks it’s a skull because he has run into the real thing, he says, in his outdoor excursions before. First, we are asked to believe he has actually seen a Bigfoot in real life. Then, we are asked to accept that this piece rock is not just a fossil but a fossil skull. And not just a fossil skull, but a skull of Bigfoot. Talk about a stretch of credulity.

It could be a fossil. It is not a skull and it is not Bigfoot. There is a mistaken assumption that you can create lithified bone in just a little while. It takes millions of years. Here is the video of his find. He notes that HE SEES features of soft tissue, like tongue and nose. That would make this even more dubious since tongues don’t fossilize. They may mummify – but there is nothing (like bone) from a tongue that would be mineralized and end up a fossilized.

Read on...

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS......

I am two thirds of the way through reading Jonathon Green's 'Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground, 1961-71'. I read his 'All Dressed Up' some years ago and was mightily impressed, and have been meaning to read this one ever since, but never got around to it. However I was so unimpressed by Maconie's 'The People's Songs' last week, and was so unimpressed I decided that I needed some proper oral pop history. This book is not only excellent but so funny in places that it made me laugh out loud. The description of how Mick Farren tried to get a band together called 'The Pink Fairies', but merely went to gigs, got horribly drunk and harangued the audience until the audience threw things at them was priceless, and reminded me of some of the less succesful earlier episodes in my own career.

What's new on the Gonzo Daily?
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com

The Gonzo Track of the Day is from T'Pau
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/gonzo-track-of-day-tpau-china-in-your.html

Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_3.html

Another piece on Rick Wakeman's forthcoming 'Journey'
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/rick-wakeman-revives-prog-rock.html

Slick Aguilar's liver transplant
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/jefferson-starship-guitarist-slick.html

Mr Averell review
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/mr-averell-review.html

German Ant-Bee review
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/german-ant-bee-review-translated.html

* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 53 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cat?

CRYPTOLINK: Bigfoot Beware! Alberta company at centre of sasquatch search

American researchers believe a high-tech airship created by a company located in the Alberta hamlet of Lac La Biche could solve the mystery of the sasquatch once and for all.

Utah-based bigfoot researcher William Barnes is trying to raise $300,000 to buy a helium-filled airship that would quietly float over dense North American forests and use thermal-imaging equipment to film footage of the legendary – not to mention elusive – creature.

An official fundraising drive for the venture, which has been dubbed The Falcon Project, kicked off last Saturday in Oregon with an all-day symposium.

After a personal encounter with bigfoot in 1997 and more than a decade spent researching sasquatch researchers, the project’s founder came up with the idea to use unmanned aerial surveillance to record the fast-moving nocturnal primate.

“We don’t want to bother them, we just want to study them,” Barnes said.

That’s where Stephen Barkley, the president of Remote Aerial Tripod Specialists Inc. (RATS), fits in.

CRYPTOLINK: After more than 40 years Bigfoot is still a topic in S.W. Clark County

Gurdon Times old ad for Hoo Hoo Theatre Bigfoot movie

This old advertisement from the Gurdon Times says it all. Everything old is new again in the Southwestern part of Clark County. Bigfoot Field Research Organization's Regional Investigator Tal Branco, the Arkadelphia Siftings Herald Head Reporter Joe Phelps and The Gurdon Times Reporter Sherry Kelley have done some preliminary...

Read on...