MORE TOUCHING POULTRY NEWS (ever get the impression that SOMEONE in the CFZ is obsessed with chickens?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-16198947

CALLING ARTISTS WITH A TOUCH OF VINTAGE DERRING DO!

The CFZ, or rather CFZ Press, are on the want. We know that there are a whole slew of talented artists out there, and that quite a few of you read the CFZ Bloggo network. But what we don't know is this...

...is there anyone out there who could work on some book covers for us? We want someone to do pastiches of classic boy's adventure book jackets, especially the ones for authors such as Roger Lanclyn Green in the halcyon days pre-1960.

Please email me on jon@cfz.org.uk

LIZ CLANCY: APOCALYPSE 1080p: Last Day of the World

It's been a long time since my last post for the CFZ bloggo but I have several incredibly good excuses. One is that I'm currently working on a film project and would like to invite CFZ bloggo readers to get involved. And CFZ TV.

In Montreal, back in January 1999, a couple of friends made a simple bet between themselves: produce an original short film every month until the New Millennium and the End of the World. Twelve months later these friends were disappointed to learn that the Apocalypse had been postponed, but they had kept their bet and 200 short films later, KINO was born!

http://www.planetekino.com/index.php?s=kino&lang=en

Twelve years later, as the year 2012 looms and the 'Mayan Doomsday' silly season appears set to strike with full force, we thought we’d commemorate KINO’s apocalyptic origins by posing ONE simple question:

IF the world is ending on 21st December 2012 (as doomsday theorists claim) how would YOU spend the world’s very Last Day?

Fulfilling your wildest ‘bucket list’ desires? Saying your last goodbyes? Getting plastered? Cowering inside your bomb shelter? Making passionate love?

Partially inspired by the Ridley Scott documentary ‘Life in a Day’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘Behind the Mask’ music video, Manchester Making Films Inspirational [MMFI] and SirClancelot Films are inviting Kino filmmakers worldwide to star in the ‘Apocalypse 1080p’ cinema project by sending us your most creative films showing how YOU plan to spend the Last Day of the World. The best footage will be used to create an amazing world-sourced, feature-length science fiction movie to be released in December 2012.

From something as basic as a 30-second mobile phone video clip of your last will and testament before the '2012 apocalypse' to the most elaborate 'countdown to Armageddon' flash mob, feel free to have all the fun in the world in creating your masterpieces.

WHAT WERE YOU DOING ON THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED?
Imagine it. Film it. Send it in.

Pull out all creative stops. Think outside the box. Let your creativity (and cameras) run wild and send us your most amazing 21/12 'bucket list' films!

Submissions may be filmed with mobile phone, camcorder, DSLR or any other means. They may be of any length and should strive for a minimum resolution of 1080p HD (though films of lesser resolution will be accepted).

Open a Free account and upload your films to Vimeo at:

http://vimeo.com/

Then send us the web link to your film (along with your full name, phone number and email address) via Facebook Message.

Alternatively, you can post your entries on CD or DVD to:

SirClancelot Films
88 Abbey Crescent
Heywood
Lancashire
OL10 4UG

(Remember to enclose your full name, phone number and email address. Submissions are non-returnable and may be re-edited as needed.)

Closing date for entries: 30 June 2012. Please disregard the 'Tuesday, March 20, 2012' closing date indicated at the top. (For some reason Facebook will not allow you to create an event that lasts for more than 4 months.)

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Could all participants refrain from adding any names, titles, dates or any other visual information to the films they submit. These will be added in post-production. Furthermore, in submitting material for this project you are doing so under the terms of the Creative Commons Public License.

MAKE THE LAST DAY OF THE WORLD COUNT FOR SOMETHING.
Imagine it. Film it. Send it in.

CFZ CANADA: The RCMP and Sasquatch

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is the Canadian national public safety service for all of Canada. It provides national, federal, provincial and municipal policing, including services to 184 aboriginal communities and three international airports.

Their duties are varied and sometimes rather odd.

http://cfz-canada.blogspot.com/2012/01/rcmp-and-sasquatch.html

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: THE HONG KONG "APE MAN" THAT WASN`T

A few months ago I reported on a story from about 1955 of an ape-man in Hong Kong. At the time all I had was a report on a paranormal blog/website. This led me to a report in the Chinese language newspaper Ta Kung Pao of 8 March 1955 (see http://hkclweb.hkpl.gov.hk:8000/microfilm/1/BATCH29b/6871C4CC9FECC4C7512E49C2E297FC3B34487A75.tif)

Today I obtained a translation from the Chinese herbalist Superherbs in Macclesfield ( see pg. 12 Flying Snake 2), which has revealed that this is a “shaggy dog story” - literally!

The actual incident was as follows:

“A hairy beast was found in Makeng Village of Chizhu, Hong Kong. A policeman found her in the grass. The animal weighs about 50 kilos. As tall as a man, quite hairy all over. It was discovered that this was a huge hound. Raised by a local farmer. She was lost from the farm days before. It was said that she often appeared in the field at nights, people would be really scared if seeing the huge hound suddenly".

But what about those “triangular footprints”? If you remember they were mentioned in the original web report when I first did my blog about this.

R

DALE DRINNON: More California Monsters

Continuing the series on California Monsters:

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/01/california-monsters-featuring-lizardmen.html

Best Wishes,

Dale D.

Helicopters, aircraft carrier to save island’s unique wildlife?

A ground-breaking £1.5 million RSPB project to eliminate introduced rats from an uninhabited island in the central Pacific has attempted to remove the fingerprints of man from an otherwise idyllic tropical paradise. As a bonus, the project has also increased the known size of the UK's overseas territories by six square kilometres.

Henderson Island, one of the UK's most remote territories and a World Heritage Site, has been ravaged by Pacific Rats, introduced by the Polynesians eight centuries ago...

Read on...

Download the newsletter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henderson_Island_(Pitcairn_Islands)


Henderson Island on Wikipedia)

Chick photos renew hope for endangered Caribbean seabird

Black-capped Petrel chick—a little ball of gray fluff that was discovered at its nest inside a mountaintop cave. The finding helps answer questions about this secretive species’ life cycle.

Read on...

HAUNTED SKIES: The Florida 'Thingnik'

The Florida 'Thingnik' - 1957

DALE DRINNON: New at the Frontiers of Anthropology

New article about DNA testing of coconuts on Frontiers of Anthropology:

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2012/01/more-on-new-world-coconuuts.html

Best Wishes, Dale D.

P.S. another article on California Monsters is on the way, too.

JON'S JOURNAL: Ness than Zero

So it's that time of the year again; the time that the media, prompted possibly by those jolly nice people at the Loch Ness Monster Fan Club remind all and sundry
that there is a prize on offer for the person or persons who made the best 'Nessie' sighting of the year.

There were, apparently, three sightings last year, and two of them were photographed. According to Fox News (and as someone who hardly ever watches television any more, I don't understand nuances of the 'Fox News Jokes' that circulate the web on a regular basis) the contenders for the prize are as follows:

1. While on vacation in May, William and Joan Jobes saw what appeared to be a head peaking above the water 200 to 300 yards off shore in Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire.
2. In June, Jan and Simon Hargreaves caught a glimpse of Nessie in the Loch near the village of Foyers, but didn't manage to get the monster on film.
3. Then in September, fish farm worker Jon Rowe snapped an idyllic photo of a large, dark shape and two humps in the water beneath the arch of a rainbow.

All very well and good, but the pictures themselves are hardly conclusive:

Joan Jobes' picture

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Jon Rowe's picture

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At least both pictures appear to show something. Many pictures from Loch Ness show nothing more than peculiar waves (this picture below was taken by yours truly in December 2005, when Richard and I visited the Loch to make a particularly futile slice of Mickey Mouse television).

I have no idea what either of them show, but I have my doubts that either are of a bona fide unknown species of animal. I would, however, love to be proved wrong.

Whilst on the subject of Loch Ness check this out:

http://news.discovery.com/earth/loch-ness-monsters-home-not-on-the-level-111231.html

A blog post by Tim Wall on Discovery News, claims that: "Just as the bubble in a carpenter's level moves back and forth depending on the surface it rests upon, Scotland's Loch Ness tilts back and forth according to the movement of the ground beneath it caused by the tides on the nearby North Sea. The motion is so subtle GPS couldn't even track it."

What impact this peculiar geophysical enigma has on the cryptozoological life of the Great Glen, I don't know, but it is interesting nonetheless.

HAUNTED SKIES: Daily Telegraph 1.2.57.

http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2012/01/daily-telegraph-1257.html

NEXT WEEK

Corinna and I are going to be away for five or six days from tomorrow. We will still have access to a computer so as far as I know the blog will continue as normal. However, Graham is running the CFZ in my absence and will take over bloggystuff if necessary.

BOB TRUBSHAW: New at 'Heart of Albion'

Just to let folk who might be interested know that I've just uploaded my latest publication as a *free* PDF download from the Heart of Albion website.

It's called Souls, Spirits and Deities and is mostly about trying to understand the Anglo-Saxon view of, well, souls, spirits and deities. However, as is typical for my writing it takes in much else along the way and raises some fairly novel thoughts about the overlaps between late pagan and early Christian world views. See
http://www.hoap.co.uk/general.htm#ssd for more details and the link to the PDF download.

D.R SHOOP: Domesticated alpacas

Jon,

I thought you might get a charge out of seeing some domesticated Alpacas.

About a year ago my sister and brother-in-law decided to invest in these animals and Christmas Day was my first-hand look at the critters.

You may notice the lack of snow for us here in Minnesota. Last year at this time we had over 20 inches; this year it's dry as a bone, which suits me fine.

CFZ IN THE NEWS

A Westcountry-based organisation with a worldwide following last night announced that it has two crucial elements of proof which confirm the belief that big cats live in the region – and that they have done so for at least a century.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ), based at Woolfardisworthy, is staging its annual conference this weekend and organisers kicked off proceedings by unveiling evidence that they claim proves big cats were running wild in Devon over 100 years ago – and that they are still here today.

Read on...

WEIRD WEEKEND: Darren Naish

For the second year running, we will be broadcasting the Weird Weekend (almost) in its entirety here on CFZtv. There were a couple of glitches due to technical problems beyond our control, but on the whole everything went well, so 95% of the conference will be up in the next days....

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

As everyone will no doubt have seen, this year has seen quite an upheaval here at the CFZ, and although we believe that most of these changes are for the better (some are purely for financial reasons, following the constraints forced upon us by the recession, and the disgraceful behaviour of some of our so-called friends) the upheaval in undeniable.

Whilst all of our UK subscribers have now received Animals & Men #46 the new format means it will be impossible to send out the magazine to our US Subscribers without yet another price hike, to an already over-high tariff.

So Naomi (God bless her) has come to the rescue. As soon as we have the WW safely out of the way, we will transfer the responsibility for US/Canadian subscriptions over to her. We will arrange for the US Office of the printer to send her magazines, and she will mail them out and then invoice us for the costs.

Although this does mean that there will be a few more weeks delay for the New World subscribers, it also means that very soon - for the first time - we shall be able to cut subscription rates across the US, Mexico and Canada, so our New World subscribers will no longer have to pay a premium for being on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean to us.

So every cloud does indeed have a silver lining....

PERUVIAN "GIANT SNAKE" PICTURES RELEASED THROUGH THE CFZ BLOGGO

After a week of negotiations with Mike and Greg Warner, the CFZ has the exclusive rights to release all the pictures from their Peruvian expedition.

Greg sent these with the following message: "These are the two shots we got that we believe is Yacumama or giant anaconda. It looks like the head to me and part of the body surfacing at the other side of the channel."

Unfortunately, although Richard and I have examined all the pictures in depth, and have spent a long time discussing the matter both by telephone and e-mail with Greg, we disagree completely with their conclusions and believe that these pictures show nothing more than a natural formation of mud or sand.

However, at this point, may we say that we are not for a moment doubting Greg and Mike's sincerity.

They appear to be very nice people who have worked very hard, and have always been open and honest with us. We, too, have always tried to behave like gentlemen, and the whole affair has been conducted in a scientific and civilised manner.

We are surprised that over the last week or so as this story has broken, that we were the only cryptozoological website to give them the courtesy of examining their evidence. Indeed we were the only cryptozoological website to bother covering this story. When you think of the torrents of press such ridiculous claims as last year's Georgia bigfoot, the two Montauk Monsters, and this year's ludicrous Quatari goblin got, I find this highly peculiar. In fact, I don't understand it at all.

When we first saw these photographs, Richard wrote to Greg:

Dear Greg

Thank you for sending over the photographs and co-ordinates.

I have spent the morning looking over them. I said that I would be totally honest in my assessment, and I will be.

I can see nothing in any of these photographs to indicate a giant snake. The picture of the creature's head with another part of the body protruding out of the water further on, looks to me like a sandbank or lump of mud. It, to my eyes at least, does not resemble a snake. Perhaps if the image had been sharper it may have revealed more.

The toppled trees and areas of destruction look like rain damage. Rainforest trees are notoriously shallow-rooted and easily ripped up by floods.

There may well be huge snakes in the area, indeed I believe that the green anaconda gets far larger than we imagine. However, I can't conceive of us getting funding for a second expedition on the back of these pictures. I'm sorry to sound so negative but I have to be honest. There are far more disappointments in cryptozoology than there are triumphs.

I wish you the best of luck with any further endeavours you embark upon.

Yours

Richard

Greg wrote back:

Hi Richard/Jon

I appreciate the time you spent on this even though I can’t accept ‘looks like a sandbank’ as an informed answer. There is no sand as this area is heavily flooded as you can see almost to the top of some trees.

To be honest, I was hoping for something more scientific with an analysis and opinion on all the evidence supplied to you but I respect your opinion and believe that you are sincere.
You guys have been fair with us so I want to offer you the same courtesy and keep to our deal.
It’s time to put this to the court of public opinion so my father has agreed to let you publish all the data we sent you on the condition that it is presented as our data (Mike Warner & Greg Warner) without subjective opinions from either party and it is presented in full (all the images we supplied with annotations also). Let people decide for themselves.

There are still questions that need answered and someone out there may have some interesting views on the matter:

• What happened in Nueva Tacna?
• Why are all these ‘major and ‘minor’ interconnecting channels running through the area?
• What is this creature if it moves on video and disappears from the channel if it isn’t a reptile?
• What happened in Morona Cocha last week when the “Black Boa” destroyed a house on the lake?
• What is this shape in the middle of the area on Google, coincidence?
• Why do the locals persist with accounts of the Yacumama in the area?
• The evidence we supplied is only a sample of what we have but it is a start.
  

We give your permission place these all the material on your CFZ site. I also, suggest that you copy our email correspondence also so that there is full transparency.

Please ensure all private information like email addresses and telephone numbers are deleted please. If anyone wants to contact us then they can do it through CFZ. We are continuing our work in the area and are sending someone to interview villagers in the settlements of Morona Cocha although we must make it clear that we do not believe this is the same creature from the Napo/Amazon.

Ultimately, we would like to go back to the Napo/Amazon and survey the area more, with better equipment and a helicopter rather than a Cesna but we’ll see how things pan out.

Kind regards

Greg & Mike

We will be releasing all the rest of the material over the next few days, and invite the bloggo readership to submit their opinions. This, we believe, is one of the first times that an expedition's findings are going to be laid open to public scrutiny in this matter, and we hope that Greg and Mike's gentlemanly behaviour will be reciprocated by anyone who cares to join in the debate.

RICHARD FREEMAN: Yokai exhibition at the Royal Academy

UTAGAWA KUNIYOSHI, JAPAN’S MASTER OF THE MACARBRE AND MONSTEROUS

Richard Freeman

Anyone who knows me will tell you I have an obsession with Japan, and in particular it’s folklore. My next book ‘The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia’ (due out later in the year) is an A to Z of Japan’s monsters. Japanese monsters or yokai are mindbendingly weird, but I won’t give too much away here, you will have to buy my book!

The Royal Academy of Art is currently (until the 5th June) holding an exhibition of the work of Utagawa Kuniyoshi, one of the most celebrated Japanese artists of all time, and one who excelled in painting yokai.

Of course, as a yokai obsessive, I had to go. In fact I visited the exhibition twice. It was an eye-popping experience.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi was born in 1797, the son of a silk dyer. By the age of twelve he was producing impressive drawings that caught the attention of the renowned artist Utagawa Toyokuni whose studio he joined. He worked in the Ukiyo-e style of woodblock art. Ukiyo-e, or ‘The Floating World’ was a genre that transended the mundane, everyday world. It revolved around pleasure, entertainment and living for the moment. Kuniyoshi was one of the first Japanese artists to use the more brightly coloured western dyes and paints in his pictures. He was also the first to incorperate western perspective in his work. This made him unpopular with critics. He was, however, massivly popular with the general public. So much so that there were even Kuniyoshi pirates who did knock-offs of his prints!

Kuniyoshi had a number of themes to which he returned again and again. One was great warriors from history and legend. He painted the heroes of the Chinese classic tale The Water Margin in spectacular action poses. He was also fond of painting beautiful women from history, folklore and from contempory life. But it is for his grotesque monsters and ghosts that he is most famed.

A nuber of pictures depictiong yokai were on show in the exibition. One of the most spectacular shows the horrific Gashadokuro, a giant cannibal skeleton. It is 90 feet tall and created from the bodies of those who died in famines. Gashadokuro bites the heads off its victims and its coming is heralded by a ringing in the ears. The painting depicts a story from the 10th century in which a provincial worlord called Taira-no-Masakado led a coup against an outpost of the central government untill he was killed by his cousin Sadamori. He was dismembered and beheaded as a warning to others.

Taira-no-Masakado’s head carried on living. It leered and laughed and eventualy flew away. His daughter, outraged at the treatement of her father’s body, prayed at the ancient Kifune Shrine in Kyoto untill her outrage was given form in a in a monsterous skeleton.

In another picture we see the renowned hero Yorimasu doing battle with the Nuẽ, a sort of Japanese Chimera. The Nuẽ has the head of a monkey, the legs of a tiger, the body of a tanuki and the tail of a snake. In 1135 the Emperor Konoe whilst at his palace in Kyōtō began to suffer dreadful nightmares. He became very ill and it was noticed that a black cloud appeared on the palace roof at 2 am each morning. The Minamoto hero Yorimasu shot an arrow into the cloud. Out of the dark miasma fell a dead Nuẽ.

Yorimasu threw the weird carcass into the Sea of Japan. The body washed ashore in a bay and the locals, fearing a curse buried it. The mound under which the Nuẽ lies is still there today, but to my knowledge no one has ever excavated it.

Yorimasu features in another spectacular work by Kuniyoshi in which he battles the titanic earth spider or Tsuchigumo. Once the great Yorimitsu fell ill and was confined to his mansion in Kyoto. He had many servants so it did not bother him that he did not recognize the boy who brought him medicine at midnight. But as the days drew on Yorimitsu became more and more ill, and suspected the boy of poisoning him.

One night Yorimitsu attacked the boy and slashed him with his sword. The youth spat a vast web about the warrior and bound him to the bed. One of Yorimitsu’s lieutenants heard the commotion and ran to his aid. He met the boy in the corridor and once again the strange youth sprayed out a giant web, pinning the man down whilst he made his escape.

The boy was tracked to a cave, where his true form - that of a giant spider - was descovered. The monster was overcome and slain. At the monster spider’s death it’s vast webs disintigrated and Yorimitsu’s strange ailment vanished.

Another story has the Tsuchigumo manifesting as a beautiful woman leading an army of yokai. Yorimitsu and his friends do battle with the bestial hord. Yorimitsu hacks at the woman and her followers vanish as if an illution. The hero follows the woman to a cave were she transformes into a monsterous spider. After a desperate struggle Yorimitsu slashes her asunder. Even in death the Tsuchigumo vomits forth hundreds of spiders the size of human infants from it’s innards. Yorimitsu and his retainers claim claim total victory only after having made sure every last one is slain. Yorimitsu was wielding a sword named "Kumokirimaru" (spider-cutter).
Both stories feature in the exhibition. In the former we see the earth spider, its bloated body covered in eye-like markings, bearing down on the hero and entwining him in its web. In the second we see the Tsuchigumo vomiting forth, not just spiders but a whole army of spirits and monsters.

In another jaw-dropping picture we see a whale-sized fish shashing the boat of the samuri Minamoto no Tametomo. Winged bird men or tengu swoop down to snach him from the waves that are engulfing his wife and child.

From a cryptozoological view point the most intresting painting was Asahina Saburo and the crocodiles. It shows a Japanese warrior in battle with two crocodiles on a beach in Japan. Crocodiles are not native to Japan but are known to the Japanese as wani. In fact the huge Indo-pacific crocodile has been known to occasionally stray into the waters around the southernmost Japanese islands. German traveler Englebert Kaemfer encountered a dragon worshiped in a Japanese temple in 1690. He tells us that he saw…

“A huge four footed snake, scaly all over the body like a crocodile with sharp prickles along the back; the head beyond the rest monstrous and terrible.”

From his description the creature seemed to be a crocodile. He even refers to a crocodile in his description. Kaemfer had almost certainly not viewed a living crocodile prior to this.

However the creatures doing battle with Asahina Saburo have turtle-like fins that make them look more like Mosasaurs than crocodiles. This could be, of course, that Kuniyoshi had never seen a crocodile and was filling in the gaps in his knowlage with his imagination, but you never know.

In a more sedate and muted picture Kuniyoshi depicts Arhat Handaka, a spiritual hero and Guardian of the Buddhist Doctrines, summoning a rain dragon from a rice bowl.

These are only a handful of the monsters that Kuniyoshi depicted in his long career. I would urge anyone in the UK to hurry down to the Royal Academy of Arts and see this amazing exibition whilst you still can.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/kuniyoshi/