PROFESSOR SYKES AT THE WEIRD WEEKEND

World famous geneticist Professor Bryan Sykes, of Oxford University is giving a talk on ''David Hume, Joanna Lumley and the Abominable Snowman" at the Weird Weekend. Professor Sykes has, in the past, worked on the 5300 year old ‘Iceman’ mummy of the Italian Alps and people claiming to be descendants of the last Russian Royal Family. He has also indentified a particular strand of DNA that passes unbroken through the maternal line allows scientists to trace our genetic makeup all the way back to prehistoric times, to seven primeval women.

More recently he has been involved in testing samples said to be from the yeti. It is this subject and his findings that he will be speaking on at the Weird Weekend.

Some of you may recall Professor Sykes was involved in our 2008 expedition to the Caucasus Mountains in search of the almasty. The possible hair we brought back turned out to be from a modern human however and not a relic hominid. Having the Professor at the Weird Weekend is not only a great pleasure but quite the feather in our cap.

GLEN VAUDREY: Northern big bird

Glen Vaudrey sent me this email a couple of weeks back...

Jon,

I had a very interesting sighting on the way into work this morning a very big bird, think big in the sense of the northern avian cryptid the Big Bird.

Basically I was travelling into to Warrington this morning at about 6:56am when I noticed from the window of the train a large black bird heading south. It appeared to be a good distance away how far is hard to say but close to 800m. There was certainly the suggestion of a large size about it. I would say it had wingspan twice that of a heron.

I tend to think that the sighting was an optical illusion and all I was watching fly along was indeed a heron. Certainly from another angle the bird did not appear to be anything special. I has however got me thinking, I think there is going to be a little more investigation need before I have an answer I will be happy with

All the best

Glen

HAUNTED SKIES: Crop Circles in 'Psychic News'

http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2011/07/three-part-crop-circle-article-from.html

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1966 Gemini 10 was launched.
And now the news:

Beehives stop elephant crop-raids in Kenya, Africa...
Billy the bruiser rules Slimbridge cranes’ roost

How to make a paper crane, just like Billy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSijU52XJ7w

WILD MAN FISHER (1944-2011)

I had no idea that he had died until I read his obituary in The Word last night. I am sooo tempted to play Merry Go Round very loud at the WW and call for two minutes silence....

For those of you who don't know about him Read this...

DALE IN SOUTH AMERICA

Most recent blogs have gone up and they are a Mapinguari posting which emphasizes that while there are apelike South American Cryptid sightings and Giant Groundsloth-like sightings, the Mapinguari category belongs more with the former than with the latter:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-mapinguaris-and-ground-sloths.html

And a posting at Frontiers of Anthropology boosting the series at Patagonian Monsters concerning the possible migration of Homo erectus to South America and subsequent survival up into modern times:

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2011/07/homo-erectus-in-new-world-from.html

TALES FROM WALLAND FARM: The baby snowy owl

http://hilltoptails.blogspot.com/2011/07/naria.html