GIANT RATTLESNAKE HOAX (Thanks to Michael Newton for this)

Ages ago we posted a story about a giant rattlesnake in Florida. It turns out to have been a hoax - well, not exactly a hoax, but a neat bit of exaggeration....

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/staugustine-giant-rattlesnake.shtml

ENORMOUS RATTLESNAKE

I have no idea whether these pictures are genuine or not, but they purport to be of an Eastern diamondback rattlesnake caught recently in Florida. I had no idea that they could grow this big, because the only species that I have ever encountered in the wild is the Eastern Missasagua rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus), which grows no longer than 30ins. However, according to Wikipedia (and I know that in some quarters it is thought that relying on Wikipedia for accurate information is about as useful as relying on me for weight loss tips), yer Eastern diamondback can grow to eight feet in length.

The pics were sent to me by a lady called Paula, along with the following information:

Guess what was found just south of Jacksonville. Near the St. Augustine outlet, in a new KB homes subdivision.

• 15 foot Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake. Largest ever caught on record.
• After seeing this, I did a little research, and learned the following:
• One bite from a snake this large contains enough venom to kill over 40 full grown men.
• The head alone is larger than the hand of a normal sized man.
• This snake was probably alive when George H. W. Bush was President.
• A bite from those fangs would equal being penetrated by two 1/4 inch screwdrivers.
• A snake this size could easily swallow a 2 year-old child.
• A snake this size has an approximately 5 and 1/2 foot accurate striking distance. (The distance for an average size Rattlesnake is about 2 feet)
• Judging by the size of the snake, it is estimated to weigh over 170 pounds. How much do you weigh?

I refuse to answer the last question, but would be interested to hear what the herpetologists and the photographers who regularly visit the bloggo make of this....

LINDSAY SELBY: The Giant Anaconda

Sucuri Gigante (means giant Anaconda, in South America, the common name for Anaconda is Sucuri), is said to be giant snake that controls the rivers it lives in. There are ancient tales that say it made the Amazon River. Since the discovery of the fossils of Gigantophis garstini, a large snake from the Priabonian age of the Eocene ( about 30 million years ago) that could reach 33 feet (11 metres) in length, and the more recently discovered fossils of Titanoboa cerrejonensis(from about 50-60million years ago) that reached 43 feet (14 metres), there has been some speculation it could actually exist and be an ancestor of the prehistoric creature. There have been supposed sightings of giant snakes in South America for many years .

In 1846 George Gardner wrote about his travels in Brazil. He said he saw a dead giant snake on the lands of a Senhor Lagoeira which was thirty-three feet long.

In 1907 Major Percy Fawcett, explorer, whilst in the Amazon told of two encounters with the Sucuriju gigante. The first mention was when the manager at Yorongas told Fawcett he had killed an anaconda fifty-eight feet long in the Lower Amazon. Then although initially doubtful he has his own encounter:

We were drifting along in the sluggish current not far below the confluence of the Rio Negro when ... there appeared a triangular head and several feet of undulating body. It was a giant anaconda. I sprang for my rifle ... and hardly waiting to aim smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into its spine ... As far as it was possible to measure, a length of forty-five feet lay out of the water, and seventeen feet in it, making a total length of sixty-two feet ... A penetrating foetid odour emanated from the snake, probably its breath, which is believed to have a stupefying effect ... The Brazilian Boundary Commission told me of one killed in the Rio Paraguay exceeding eighty feet in length!

In May 1922 Father Victor Heinz saw a monster snake near the town of Obidos, on the shores of the Amazon. He claimed it was nearly eighty feet in length.

In 1923, F.W. Up de Graff reported that an anaconda he had seen lying in the water beneath his canoe measured fifty feet in length.

Father Heinz then had a second encounter in 1929. This, however, was not quite as dramatic. He was at the mouth of the Rio Piaba, near Alemquer, when he saw two large lights appear near the surface of the water. He was told the giant anaconda lived in the area and presumed it was its eyes in the water.

Father Heinz then started collecting stories about the giant snakes. These included the accounts of trader Reymondo Zima who said that in July 1930 he had come across a serpent with glowing eyes in the Rio Jamunda, opposite the town of Faro. In September 1930 Joao Penha claimed to have seen one in the Rio Iguarape. This snake pushed a wall of submerged debris nine hundred feet (300metres) and also had glowing eyes. More recently was the account of Paul Tarvalho, from 1948, again near Faro. He said saw a snake emerge from the water that was about 150 feet (50 metres) long.

Bernard Heuvelmans wrote the about Sucuriju Gigante, saying a skin kept at the Butantan Institute in Brazil was about thirty feet in length. The painter Serge Bonacase told Heuvelmans of an encounter with a Sucuriju that he had in 1947. Bonacase's sighting took place in the swampy area between the Rio Manso and the Rio Cristalino and twenty other men where with him at the time. Bonacase estimated the snake's length at about seventy feet.

The Diario, the newspaper of Pernambuco in Brazil, on January 24, 1948 published a picture with a headline 'Anaconda Weighing 5 Tons.' The picture showed a part of a giant anaconda that was caught by the river. It was said to measure 131 feet (43 metres) long. Four months later another newspaper A Noite Illustrada printed a photograph of a dead anaconda said to be 115 feet (38 metres) long from the photographs, though it was difficult to estimate if that was the actual size.

In 1995 botanist Grace Rebelo dos Santos saw two bluish lights nearly a foot apart when a net became caught on something large and heavy. She cautiously suggested that this might be a giant anaconda. Later the same year she saw a "waterspout" about ten inches tall, and a long, dark shape could be seen underneath it, perhaps another sighting.

So could a snake really be that big? It is possible as snakes have been found 23 feet (about 7.6 metres) long and who is to say that there are not large versions out there. I would love to see one, but not up close! Snakes are fascinating creatures.

For interest some more about Percy Fawcett:

http://www.phfawcettsweb.org/anaconda.htm

GIANT SNAKES - FOR GOODNESS SAKES

Giant Snake 55ft long killed in China! Goodness Me!

This picture has been doing the rounds for the last few days. Some incredible claims have been made for it. However, young Max Blake, the frighteningly intelligent young man who is spearing the next generation of the CFZ, takes a look at it and finds that all is not as it seems.
http://maxzoo.blogspot.com/2009/11/giant-snakes-for-goodness-sakes.html

AUBREY: GIANT SNAKES (FOR GOODNESS SAKES)

How would you like to possibly earn $50,000? The Wildlife Conservation
Society, as far as I read, is still offering a $50,000 reward for any snake at least 30 feet long. It must be delivered alive and in good health,
accompanied by all necessary permits and paperwork, to the Bronx Zoo in New York City. Now, before you embark on the Great Snake Hunt, there's something you should know.

The reward was first offered in the early 1900s by President Theodore
Roosevelt, a close friend of William T. Hornaday, the Bronx Zoo's director
at the time. And the money--initially $1,000, then $10,000, and now
$50,000--is still unclaimed. Why? Because it's quite possible that snakes don't grow that large.

Throughout history explorers' tales abound of giant snakes measuring 30, 40, and even 50 feet in length. For example, in 1907 a British adventurer named Percy Fawcett claimed to have shot a giant anaconda (Eunectes murinus) measuring 62 feet. Since Fawcett didn't think to bring back the carcass, few people believed his claim.

Guiness Book of World Records credits a reticulated python (Python reticulatus) that was slain on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 1912 as the longest snake ever reliably measured. According to Guinness, this whopper was 39.4 feet in length. A close second, Guinness maintains, was a 38.3-foot African rock python (Python sebae) shot on the Ivory Coast in 1932.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Richard Freeman would love to see these citations, because the largest snake of which we were aware was indeed shot in Sulawesi, we think in 1912, but we believe that it was a mere 33ft.

While there are those that claim 40 foot Anacondas exist, scientific studies indicate otherwise. In a recent survey of more than 1,000 wild anacondas in Brazil, the largest was around 17 feet and 100 pounds. So to claim there are anacondas out there 50, 80, 100 or even 120 feet long, slithering around in Peru or anywhere else in South America, I find ridiculous. You stand as great a chance of finding a 100-foot snake as you would a 40 pound pigeon. Good luck with that.

THE ORIGINAL STORY ABOUT THE PERUVIAN GIANT SNAKE AS IT FIRST APPEARED

MORE ON THE SAGA OF THE PERUVIAN GIANT ANACONDA

The saga of the supposed giant snake from Peru continues. I am now in a dialogue with Greg Warner, the younger of the two explorers who claim to have taken photographs of a 130ft snake in South America. And - much to my surprise - he does seem to be a decent and polite bloke. But his story is so extraordinary that we would not be doing our job properly if we did not approach our investigations of the affair with as much rigour as possible.

Despite recent political changes in this country people are still just about inocent until proven guilty. However, when one is approaching a case like this one, one has to take the opposite tack.

But one thing is paramount: whereas we have to treat all claims, especially ones as extraordinary as this, with a great deal of suspicion, we also have to treat the people making them with respect.

Last year I was quoted in a press story about artist Pollyanna Pickering's trip to Bhutan where she saw what appeared to be a yeti scalp, and I was
pilloried (often illiterately) on websites across the cryptoverse. I know what it is like to have your claims under suspicion, and to be treated with ill-bred rudeness both from the canaille and from those who really should know better. Greg and his father Mike have treated us in a polite and gentlemanly manner, and we have every intention of treating them the same.

The first mystery that had to be cleared up was the matter of the photograph that accompanied the original press story, reproduced in facsimile here just in case anyone thought that we had made it up.

If you read the article, it doesn't claim that this photograph was actually taken by the expedition. Indeed it wasn't. It appears to have been taken by a dude called André Issi and was used to illustrate a journal that can be found here. Tony Lucas in New Zealand and Dr Dan Holdsworth both provided translations which can be found here

Dan went on to write:

This page too is written in Portuguese, and once again Google translate only seems to want to translate part of it, however searching through for the word "anaconda" and translating those sections of text still doesn't seem to yield much info on the photos.

Chris Kraska wrote:

Jon-

That's looks like a dead yellow anaconda on its side. It could also be a dead green anaconda on its back but the photo is so tiny I can't tell if I'm seeing ventral scales or dorsal/lateral scales.

Bobbins.

Chris

However, Greg Warner has written to me that "The photo used is a research photo not one from the expedition although we believe it has all the charictoristics [sic] of a Yacumama or Black Boa 15-20 Meters long." That is fair enough, although I think it shows a dead yellow anaconda about 12ft long. But it is a relatively convincing explanation for how this picture became associated with the case, so I think that it is time that we took Senor Issi and his picture out of the equation, for the time being at least.

If one reads the original newspaper article from the Belfast Telegraph carefully, a lot of the more outlandish claims for the creature (which sounds far more like the minhoaco than a giant snake, but that's another issue) are from stories originally from the South American newspapers reproduced on this page.

Greg kindly provided a translation of these newspaper articles. His translations can be found here Being a suspicious bugger, (although I prefer to call it an adherance to some level of scientific rigour) I also got Chris Kraska to translate them:

(PS although I can make myself understood in New World Spanish, after my expeditions to Mexico and Puerto Rico, my grasp of the language is rudimentary at best, and mostly only good for buying beer and cigarettes, and finding the nearest bar or airport - and as I have since quit smoking, a large chunk of my bilingualism is rendered completely pointless)

It destroyed their home and devoured domestic animals. (smaller above)

Sachamama frightens elderly couple (larger below)

Next. From the text (Btw, this is basically one big run on sentence):

A nearly inexplicable act was what happened to an elderly couple residents of Committee 11 of the Michaela Bastidas settlement who from one moment to the next were swung from one extreme to the other by something large that came out from the depths of the river, from the depths it came out like a hurricane that destroyed my poor house that is more than 50 meters from where it was located, I was dying of fright because I saw it, saw it's gigantic jet black head that was about to kill me, expressed Mrs. Dolores Suna, who was sure that what had left her exposed to the elements with one canoe worth of supplies, is the mother of that island that is in front of ours, there you find her, in the aguaje tree there, finished Dolores, who along with her husband Artemio, was comforted by her neighbors, who didn't doubt in their prayer, now they wait to have the same luck with Civil Defense, we hope.

#3

Smaller above:

Knocked down a house and panicked two residents

Larger below:

Giant Boa in Moronacocha

Smaller below:

People say monster has huge eyes, scales and horns

Iquitos (Peru)-

With fear they are found the neighbors of the settlements of El Porvenir and Micaela Bastidas, located in the sector of Moronachocha, by the presence of a gigantic boa. Antonio Mayta Aricaya (64), fisherman of Moronacocha lake, attests that months prior, in the zone there were plenty of fish and that now there are none owing to the enormous reptile.

"The island is always alive at night and sounds are heard in the river, it's all a mystery. It appears the giant animal uses the vegetation as camoflage to slide through without being seen", decared Mayta Aricaya.

Admin Perez Gutierrez related that all the time the island was a peaceful place, and now it's the opposite. "Until it knocked down a house that was in the middle of the lake. It's the first time this has happened and the river has grown too much."

In the meantime, the people of the two settlements, don't go close to the edges of the river, for fear that the animal will appear, that has been catalogued as a monster with huge eyes, horns and scales.

In RED at center.

"That zone is known for having animals; previously there was a lizard that ate hens, but this incident was different because I saw that there was a huge one with eyes that sparkled like a lantern" says Carlos Caballero Dahua (47), subsecretary of the Micaela Bastidas settlement. According to the neighbors, the boa travels in a zone of vegetation and moves from one end to the other during the night, when there are no humans present.

In my opinion the two sets of translations are substantially the same, and that unless Greg and Mike have far too much time on their hands, and have gone to the trouble of faking two sets of South American newspapers, which is not impossible, but would seem ridiculously unlikely, that the stories that they claimed came from the newspaper were exactly that!

Whether or not a snake did attack someone's house and cause the damage described (which sounds incredibly unlikely), Greg and Mike are making no such claims from their own experience. It is tempting to suggest that someone at the Peruvian newspaper has resurrected stories of the minhoaco and used them to explain damage done to a crappily built building by a flash flood or something similar. Who knows?

The events overnight (and forgive me if they are a little confused, but I was up late watching the election results and I am less than 100% compos mentis this morning) seem to have clarified the matter considerably. And at the moment I have to say that Greg and his father Mike are coming out of this looking much better than I had at first expected.

Watch this space, for there will undoubtedly be more updates later..

GIANT ANACONDA - The plot thickens

The saga of the giant anaconda picture from the Northern Irish newspaper rumbles on, and has taken some most unexpected turns.

Firstly Markus Hemmler made the following post on the Fronitiers of Zoology Usenet group:



My first thought as I've read this story was that I know this picture before... I've tried it with a search for Sucuriju with Google-Picturesearch and you know what? I found it on the first site! Some deeper research and I found the site from which I know it:

http://www.popa.com.br/diarios/issi/BRAS-BSAS.htm



Published some years before and probably taken by a man named André Issi. So if this picture is that which they claim to have taken - it's a hoax.

But then I got a very polite note from one of the members of the expedition:

Hi,

This is Greg Warner. I was with my Father Mike when we made the discovery. He is downstairs relexing after our Sunday BBQ. I'm both excited and surprised to see this blog. One thing we hadn't planned for was a fight to convince fellow crytozoologists. We are putting togther our paper to be submitted to scientific journals as a start of phase two of our project.

However, your questions and concerns are valid and I will bring my father upstairs soon to address these questions. Sometimes the truth is extraordinary.

GW

Greg, if you read this I would be very interested to talk to both you and your father. Yes, your claims are indeed extraordinary, but I would be very interested in seeing your evidence. Email me on jon@eclipse.co.uk

The way I see it is that whatever transpires, if all involved behave like gentlemen, (and ladies, of course, where appropriate) then we can continue to push back the boundaries of human knowledge.

Watch this space

GREAT SNAKE? OR NO GREAT SHAKES?

As we came downstairs this morning we were greeted by the following headline, which has been splashed across various portions of The Internet:

LISBURN MEN FIND GIANT SNAKE IN THE AMAZON

and a newspaper report from a Northern Irish newspaper which told how:


"After 23 years of research including the detailed study of ancient art, cultures spanning 3000 years and three continents to the latest in satellite imaging technology, a father and son make an extraordinary trip deep into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon to confirm their theories that this is where a giant anaconda with a difference lives.

But that's precisely what Lisburn man Mike Warner (73) and his son Greg (44) have done, seeking evidence that this was the home of the Yacumama and actually capturing a picture of the creature".

I had already done the morning posts for the bloggo this morning. We have visitors this afternoon, and I wanted to have my decks clear for action. But we had to comment on this before it gets out of hand. However, as Richard says "a number of things sound wrong with this story".

• Firstly as professional cryptozoologists we would have thought that we would have heard of Mike and Greg Warner, especially if they had been researching the giant anaconda for 23 years. They might well have been keeping their research secret however, and despite rumours to the contrary, it is not obligatory for UK cryptozoologists to be members of the CFZ, nor would we wish it to be. But one would have thought that we would have at least heard of them.
• But the doubts don't stop there. The size attributed to the snake is truly fantastic, 40 metres (133 feet long) and 2 metres (six feet) wide. The idea of it knocking down 90 foot trees and demolishing houses sounds equaly unlikely.These, together with the huge furrows the creature is said to make make it sound much more like the minhocão - a supposed giant worm like beast from Southern Brazil and Uruguay. The minhocão supposedly uprooted trees, made furrows and destroyed houses. But it has not been reported in recent years.
• The idea of a snake spitting water like a fire hose to knock monkeys out of trees strikes us as absurd, and may well have been inspired by the archer fish that squirts water at flies.
• On to the photo. It does seem to show a large anaconda but nothing like the 40 metres quoted. The size of the snake is hard to judge. We only have what seems to be the prow of a canoe to compare it to. Canoes can differ greatly in size. Is this a one man canoe or a large vessel for transporting a number of people and their equipment? At the front of the boat we see what looks like tarpaulin and rope covering something so the canoe may be quite large, If this is so then the anaconda may be very big (but nothing like 40 metres).
• If the boat is 3 to 4 feet wide then the anaconda would be 1 to 1.5 feet wide. The width to length ration of an anaconda can differ greatly between individuals and is effected by how much they have eaten. A rough estimate would put a snake of this width in the 18-25 foot range.
  

Now, we would like to stress that this story may be genuine, and that the peculiar aspects of it may just be the result of poor reportage, or even misprints. Neither Richard or I have any great faith in local journalists as a whole, having been misprinted and misquoted, and had complete rubbish just made up and attributed to us over the years. But as it is at the moment the stroy would seem to be too fantastic to be true.

The full story can be found at:

http://www.lisburntoday.co.uk/news/LISBURN-MEN-FIND-GIANT-SNAKE.5335325.jp

and no doubt the usual suspects will be attacking us by the end of the day with lines like "wot do this ppls think they is, Giant snakes rule rar!"

But we really don't care, and - believe me - we would love to be proved wrong: 130ft long snakes which spit water at monkeys would be monumentally cool beyond belief...

UPDATES CAN BE FOUND AT:

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/06/giant-anaconda-plot-thickens.html

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-on-saga-of-peruvian-giant-anaconda.html

THE BIG THREE: Neil Arnold

A FEW WEEKS AGO WE ASKED VARIOUS BLOGGO REGULARS TO TELL US WHAT WERE THEIR TOP THREE FAVOURITE MYSTERY ANIMALS... AND WHY

I have known Neil for fifteen years now since he was a mod schoolboy with ambitions for adventure and I was an earnest young hippie who merely wanted to start a club for people interested in unknown animals. Nothing much has changed over the years. We are just both a tad older...

I was going to begin with a predictable choice, that being Bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest, as it had such an impact on my childhood after reading the 1974 book Monsters & Mysterious Beasts by Carey Miller. But I’m not one for predictability, and so I present to you my first favourite mystery animal. Mystery giant wolves.

The Amarok belongs to Inuit mythology, a solitary hunter of muscular form, which feeds on human flesh if there is no other prey around. From the wastes of the Arctic to the snowy rocky outcrops Canada there is every possibility that some kind of unknown species of larger, more fearsome wolf roams. The Adlet is certainly the most known legend of northern Canada and Alaska in regards to monster wolves, and although its origins are the stuff of folklore (It is said that the first wolf was a docile creature which mated with a woman and took her for his wife. Ten pups were produced, five being red-furred wolves the others being terrifying animals which were to become outcasts of the family, and so ate their mother and roam the wilds up to this day) could there be some truth to the beliefs of giant wolves ? The Witchie Wolf is feared in Chipewa lore also. Across the world legends persist, in Bandirpur, Uttar Pradesh, India, several huge wolf-like creatures have been blamed for the disappearance of more than thirty children. Many of the incidents took place in 1996. But the most feared canid is without doubt the Salaawa, or ‘female ghoul’ said to haunt parts of Egypt. The beast has become a folkloric marauder, connected with Anubis, the jackal-headed goddess of the afterlife. Yet this monster, which attacked many people around Cairo in 1996, resembles a giant hyena or mutant wolf/dog, often black in colouration, having two powerful hind legs, and two shorter front limbs and prominent fangs. Packs have allegedly been tracked and shot dead by the police, but sceptics argue such creatures are simply wild dogs, but, wild dogs would not have provoked residents to create anti-Salaawa defences, and the installation of phone lines across Egypt has reached a record volume. Unfortunately, being labelled the ‘Egyptian goatsucker’ hasn’t helped its credibility, but the Salaawa remains potent across the sands.

Secondly, the Amazonian Mother Snake. This was the monstrous reptile which explorer Benedict Allen went in search of during the early 1990s. His expedition was filmed for BBC2 and entitled Raiders Of The Lost Lake. Allen is one of my favourite adventurers, and in his quest he voyages into the heart of the Amazon to search for a mythical lake, greatly feared by local tribes who, whilst trudging through the forest, abandon him for the last part of his journey for fear of demons and phantoms guarding the waterhole. Amazingly, Allen finds the lake, a murky, still and eerie place surrounded by impenetrable foliage, and it’s here he claims that the mother of all snakes lives, possibly a giant anaconda. Of course, those who have allegedly found the lake, have never returned, possibly eaten by the slithering beast, or consumed by dread and the power of nature. But, if the giant anaconda, or any water monster exists, then it’s likely to lurk in this special lake.

Lastly, giant owls. Big Hoot and Big Owl maybe names not registered in cryptozoology circles, but for many years across the United States there have been sighting of huge, clawed birds often connected to Indian mythology just like the Thunderbirds. However, Big Hoot and Big Owl, could well be flesh and blood flappers. These birds stand four-feet in height and were considered by the Wyandot Indians to be far more aggressive during thunderstorms. If bad weather came with, before or after sightings of these huge owls, then it’s only natural such birds would be perceived as bad omens. In 1982 at Rocky Fork Lake, Ohio, a female witness saw an owl-like creature with a wingspan greater than most small airplanes. The Cree Indian’s spoke of Big Owl as a sign of famine. The owl was so terrifying that its presence was felt in the forests and most game animals would flee the area, causing the tribes to starve. Then, any hunter brave enough to scour the woods in search of prey, would be plucked from the ground by the swooping menace, and eaten. Strangely, giant owls of some considerable size were also mentioned in the wave of Mothman sightings in West Virginia during the 1960s, and also the Owlman case in Cornwall, although I doubt flesh and blood birds were to blame.

MICHAEL NEWTON'S NEW BOOK ADDS TO A CONFUSING SATURDAY LUNCHTIME

This has been a peculiar morning. I was up bright and early (well, 10:30 which amounts to the same thing in my book). The post arrived on time. It included the latest edition of the AES journal with an interesting article about halved gynandromorphs which I look forward to critiquing for the bloggo.

Then all sorts of things happenned, and the next two hours went by in a blur. I'm not sure what they actually were, but all of a sudden it is nearly 1:00, the bloggo is an hour late, and I haven't done any of the things I had intended to do.

Never mind. T'is all sorted now, and we have even finished the latest book from CFZ Press: Michael Newton's Giant Snakes.

In this exciting book, Michael Newton takes an overview of the most terrifying uberpredators in the world - giant snakes. Outsized examples of known species as well as putative new species are looked at in detail. From fact to fiction, and from continent to continent, the stories and the science are examined, and the cryptozoological significance of these creatures explained. A fascinating (if slightly scary) book. Well done Michael.

The book will be available at the end of next week price £9.99

NICK REDFERN: Snaking Around the Cemetery...

Well, yet again there is high-strangeness afoot in the woods of Britain's Cannock Chase - and specifically in the vicinity of its German Cemetery.

As regular readers will know, the cemetery in question has been a veritable hotbed of weirdness for years: Bigfoot, werewolves, hairy-sprites, ghosts, marauding black-cats, and spectral black-dogs have all been seen roaming amongst the old war-graves.

But, now there's a new player in town: a giant snake that has been seen slithering around the area. As the story shows, this is not the first time that similar beasts have been seen on the Chase (I investigated a case myself a number of years ago that reportedly occurred in the blisteringly hot-summer of 1976).

So, what are people seeing? Are they regular snakes or something else? From the descriptions, they could perhaps be pythons. However, the problem is that such creatures would not last long when the cold, harsh winter sets in.

And yet such creatures have been seen for years on the Chase, which begs the questions: if they are regular snakes, how are they surviving those aforementioned harsh winters year-after-year? And why are the snakes (like all of the other odd beasts seen on the Chase) now homing in on the German Cemetery?

Truly a mystery of Fortean proportions!

And if that were not enough, we have a new big cat sighting in the area; and a UFO encounter!

GUEST BLOGGER RICHARD HOLLAND: Wrexham carter attacked by enormous serpent

Once again we hand you over to guest blogger Richard Holland, editor of Paranormal Magazine, and all round good bloke. He is a regular visitor tho these pages, and I am sure that you will all agree with me that this is jolly good news for all of us..

Apologies for both the lateness and the brevity of this blog but it’s deadline week and the usual scramble to fill pages with great dollops of strangeness.

This is another account from my home patch of North-East Wales. Unfortunately, I don’t have the original source in front of me but can tell you it was a slim volume detailing the history of a village in what is now the county borough of Wrexham: Overton in Days Gone By by G J Howson, published in 1883. I must quote from my first book Supernatural Clwyd, which I wrote when I was 24 (crikey, was I ever that young?)

‘One year in the early 19th century, there was a news report of a “huge snake” being encountered in Overton. It had leapt out of a hedge and attacked a team of horses carrying a cart of coal near the bridge. With considerable difficulty, the carter succeeding in killing it, and he draped it over his cart. The carcass was so long that its head reached the ground in front and its tail dragged along behind!’

I sincerely hope it was the source that was vague about the year and not down to any youthful sloppiness on my part. I also find myself pondering whether snakes, be they ever so huge, can actually ‘leap’. I suppose they can. The bridge referred to is a sizeable, horseshoe-shaped structure with an inn on its northerly (I think) side and a wide stretch of the River Dee far below it on the opposite side.

I shouldn’t think this snippet is well known so I hope it proves interesting, brief though it is. I don’t suppose there are many descriptions of dragon-length serpents from the 19th century.

Richard Holland, Editor of Paranormal Magazine (http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/) and Uncanny UK (http://www.uncannyuk.com/).

In which Jonathan and the cat commit image fraud

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/02/19/is-100ft-long-snake-mythical-borneo-monster-or-just-a-photo-fake-115875-21137187/

The Daily Mirror describes the latest rather dubious giant snake photographs from Borneo (see yesterday's post) as a "clever piece of photo editing". Having too much time on my hands and a copy of adobe photoshop I decided to see just how clever a piece of photo editing it actually was.

12:20 I open Adobe Photoshop and Google Earth
12:22 I find Bideford Bay on Google Earth and press the "print screen" button on my keyboard
12:24 The cat comes into the office and jumps on the keyboard
12:25 I swear at the cat
12:26 I start again
12:28 After a bit of mucking about I have the following image as a *.jpg on photoshop

12:30 I then type the words 'swimming snake' into Goodle.com/images and find This URL
12:32 I download this picture

12:34 The cat comes back in and jumps onto my lap. We make friends again and I waste several minutes fussing him
23:36 Using the magic eraser tool I do a fairly half-arsed job at getting ridof the background and produce this:
12:38 With the cat still on my knee I paste the snake image onto the image of the Torridge Estuary. I then blur it a little bit, and making sure that I have an opacity of about 40% I resize the snake and cover it with a pasted image of the muddy water.
12:40 We have this - conclusive proof that giant snakes swim up and down the River Torrisge between Bideford and Appledore.

If I had paid more attention to the job in hand, rather than only taking twenty minutes (most of which was spent alternatively playing with the cat, or remonstrating him for his sins) I could have done a much more convincing job.

So If the Daily Mirror really thinks that the Borneo image is a "clever piece of photo editing" can I have a job in the Art Department? I am, sure that they pay more than I earn at the moment..

RICHARD FREEMAN: Giant Snakes (for goodness sakes)

The recent supposed aerial photographs of the 'Borneo Monster' HERE are clearly badly photo shopped fakes. The first shows a South American anaconda, the second looks like it has actually been drawn on, rather than showing a real object.

There are massive snakes in Borneo. The reticulated python can reach 33 feet plus. The South American anaconda is likely to get even larger, with 50 foot specimens being well within the realms of possibility. Isn't it fishy that these particularly crappy looking fakes come hot on the heels of the discovery of Titaniboa, the 43 foot fossil boa?

When snakes at least as large as Titaniboa are still reported today, it is indeed galling when time is wasted with such crude fakes.

In 2007, we travelled to Guyana on the track of the giant anaconda. Drought prevented us from reaching Corona Falls - the remote lake that was its lair.

We want to return this year to search for the monster and are currently looking for funding.

If anyone out there can help, we would be grateful. Forget the fakes, let’s look for the real deal!

MORE FROM MUIRHEAD....

Richard Muirhead has been down the library again.

As regular readers will know, I have been friends with him for 40 years now, since we were kids together in Hong Kong. He is undoubtedly one of the two best researchers I have ever met; he and Nigel Wright both have what Charlie Fort would have no doubt called a wild talent; a talent for going into a library, unearthing a stack of old newspapers, and coming back with some hitherto overlooked gem of arcane knowledge.

Today he writes saying that in his opinion the following two new stories are not thoroughly unusual,but they do border on being strange. The first, the Scottish wolf, found dead on the east coast of Scotland,dates from April 1811 and the giant (ish) snake from August 1811.

"There was lately found at Tyringham,near Dunbar,the dead body of a large Wolf. There were several wounds on its head, and a cut on its neck,and from the appearance of the body it has long bean dead. It was immediately skinned and stuffed, and is in good preservation. The colour is light dusky yellow a black ridge down the back,and nearly white in the belly and breast. It has a sharp snout,erect ears,strong foreparts and a bushy tail. The length from the snout to the tip of the tail is 6 feet. The legs are shorter than usually described. It is conjectured the creature had been on board some of the vessels lately wrecked on the coast."

Macclesfield Courier and Stockport Express or Cheshire General Advertiser (MC & SECGA) April 27th 1811.

According to J.E.Harting the last wolf was killed in Scotland in 1743(1) but M.Carwardine reports a date as late as 1848.(2)

Now here,the giant serpent of Florida:

"A serpent of extraordinary size,has been recently discovered in the Mississippi swamp, a few miles above the village. I have conversed with three gentlemen of unquestioned veracity who have seen it. They agree in their description,which is,in substance that the monster is in body considerably larger than the ordinary man,beautifully stripped with gold and green,rich beyond conception-the length is not accurately known,but is supposed to be from 15 to 23 (or 25,type unclear) feet. One of the gentlemen with whom I conversed shot at it with a rifle,when it emitted a very offensive smell,from which he supposed he had wounded it. However,as it was seen the succeeding day,it is presumable that if it was wounded,the wound was slight.

This is the first serpent of such large size I have heard of." (M.C.& SECGA) August 17th 1811.

(1).J.E. Harting. A Short History of The Wolf In Britain.p.90
(2) M.Carwardine. The Guiness Book of Animal Records. p.42

RICHARD MUIRHEAD.17/2/09

RICHARD FREEMAN: Blogging around...

It is a great privelige to be part of the Nature Blog Network and it is great fun to be able to pootle around the blogs seeing what 's new. First up (not surprisingly) is our old mate Darren Naish (who incidentally was the guy who first recommended the Nature Blog Network to us)...

In the light of the recently discovered Titaniboa it behoves us to take a look at some other monster serpents.

Stupidly large snakes - the story so far:

It has always been rumoured that some snakes grow to sizes that exceed the 10 m record which is generally accepted as the authenticated maximum; this was for a reticulated python (Python reticulatus) shot on Sulawesi in 1912. Numerous stories and anecdotes discuss reticulated pythons and anacondas (Eunectes murinus) that far exceed this, with the most famous of these stories being Major Percy Fawcett's 19 m long anaconda that he claimed to have shot in the Brazilian Rio Abuna in 1907. Despite its immense length, Fawcett reported that this snake had a width of just 30 cm (which makes the tale rather unbelievable), and he even discussed trails in the swamps that 'support the statements of Indians and rubber pickers that the anaconda sometimes reaches an incredible size, altogether dwarfing that shot by me' (Heuvelmans 1995, p. 340). Despite these many stories, no-one has yet produced a snake that exceeds 10 m in total length (though I hope that if such a specimen is ever found, it is not killed, but is restrained or captured or something.. and yes I do know that this is somewhat less easy than it sounds).

Perhaps less well known than these accounts of modern-day giants, however, are rumours and reports of fossil snake bones that have been estimated by some workers to have belonged to truly gargantuan reptiles...
Read more


Giant Killer Lungfish? A couple of weeks ago both Jon and Karl blogged on the subject of cryptozoological lungfisheds. But here is another one. Minhocoes - the burrowing monster of South America, was it a huge lungfish? Zoologist Brian Switek investigates.

A December 1847 issue of the newspaper The Friend relayed the report of L.A. da Silva e Souza that the lake Padre Aranda in Brazil was home to creatures called minhocoes that "dwell in the deepest part of the lake, and have often drawn horses and horned cattle under the water." The creatures were also reported to inhabit Lake Feia, and the local people said they were giant worms that "cause[d] animals to disappear by seizing them by the belly."
Read on...

PRESS RELEASE: Do Giant Snakes still crawl the earth?

For Immediate Release
2009-02-08

DO GIANT SNAKES STILL CRAWL THE EARTH?

The scientific world was rock recently when the remains of eight gigantic snakes were unearthed in a Columbian quarry. Measuring 43 feet, Titanoboa cerrejonensis was among the largest fossil snakes ever to have been uncovered. You might think such monsters must surely be restricted to the dim, primordial past – but you would be wrong, say a group of Devon-based scientists.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology is the world’s only full-time scientific organization dedicated to the investigation of anomalous or undiscovered species of animal. The group has tracked gigantic serpents all across the globe.

Zoologial director Richard Freeman, a reptile specialist, says:

"Stories of monstrous snakes appear in most cultures, but there may be much more than ancient legend in these tales. In the year 2000, I explored the rivers, caves and jungles of Thailand. I interviwed a number of witnesses who claimed to have seen a huge snake, known as a naga. The animal lived in water and bore an erectile crest on its head. In Sumatra the tribespeople spoke of encountering vast horned snakes in the deep jungle.

“Such creatures are not restricted to the tropics. Whilst in the Caucausus mountains of Russia, we were told of a 33-foot-long species of snake that inhabited marshy areas of the former Soviet Union."

However the most promising accounts come from South America, says Richard.

"In 2007 we travelled to Guyana on the track of the giant anaconda. Our guide, Damon Corrie, was an Arawak Indian chief. He told us of a titanic anaconda inhabiting a remote lake. It was so huge that he hunters who saw it fled in terror. They pointed out a 30-foot tree to him and said the snake was far larger. The anaconda in question would have been in the region of 40 feet!

"Frustratingly, due to adverse weather conditions, we could not reach the lake where the giant snake dwelt. More recently, very large anaconda have been reported closer to Damon's village in the grasslands of Guyana."

The CFZ is currently looking for sponsorship, so that Richard can lead an expedition to return to Guyana and travel to the lake in question.

"We know where the lake is, so we will not have to search too wide an area. The creature is a 'sitting duck'. We hope to head out this spring or summer, funding permitting," he says.

"Because anacondas give birth to live young, rather than laying eggs, they have severed their last link with land. Very big ones spend most of their time buoyed up in the water."

But such large snakes can prove dangerous. As recently as the late 1990s, an anaconda thought to be 45 feet long devoured Daniel Menezes in Soa Paulo Brazil as his father Joao looked on helplessly.

Pictures are available. For further details, or to arrange an interview with Richard please telephone Jon or Corinna on +44 (0)1237 431413

NOTES TO EDITORS

* The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (4 and is a non-profit making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.

* Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.

* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over 20 books. His latest book is Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of the grotesque vampiric chupacabra.

* The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including Russia, Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and Loch Morar.

* CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals & Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and The Amateur Naturalist, Britain’s only dedicated magazine on the subject.

* The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv www.cfztv.org. One of their films `Lair of the Red Worm` which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition has now been seen by nearly 50,000 people.

* The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon which he shares with his wife Corinna (52). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and a collection of exotic animals.

* Jonathan Downes presents a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work of the CFZ.

* The CFZ are opening a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.

* Following their successful partnership with Capcom www.capcom.com on the 2007 Guyana expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.