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...

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Wednesday, October 09, 2019

THE LAST WEEK AT THE CFZ-USA BLOG

CFZ-USA


  • WEREWOLVES
  • SEA SERPENTS OF THE 19th CENTURY
  • MASS HYSTERIA
  • BÈS BULONG
  • THE VERY WEIRD DNA OF THE OCTOPUS
  • 187 YEAR OLD TORTOISE
  • WHAT WERE THE CHILEAN FIREBALLS?
  • BIGFOOT SCREAMED
  • WOMAN AND BIGFOOT
  • WAS THIS A PARANORMAL HUMANOID?
  • BLUE LAKE MONSTER
  • SCOTTISH DRAGON LEGEND
  • DOGMAN IN MICHIGAN
  • TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
  • FAIRY ENCOUNTERS
  • TALL, DARK AND TERRIFYING
  • BUNYIP OF THATGOMINDAH
  • ATTACKS BY YOWIES
  • LIVE FOOTAGE OF MEGALODON?
  • EVIDENCE OF ELEPHANT'S MEMORY
  • REVIEW OF "THE LOCH NESS SEA LION"
  • CRYPTID CONFERENCE IN TENNESSEE
  • MEN IN BLACK
  • CAN MOTHMAN CHANGE ITS FORM?
  • GRYLA - CREATURE OF ICELAND
  • FAIRIES AND PIXIES - WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE
  • DOGMAN IN ARKANSAS
  • BIGFOOT CHASES FORMER SOLDIER
  • ANIMAL OF ZAMBIAN MYTHOLOGY
  • THREATS TO THE CHEETAH
  • FAYETTEVILLE MOTHMAN
  • GOLDEN TIGER
  • NEW YORKER ENCOUNTERS LITTLE PEOPLE
  • SHORT HUMANOIDS IN ROBES
  • 11 MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS
  • BEAST OF BOLAM LAKE
  • MOON-EYED PEOPLE
  • BIGFOOT FESTIVAL IN SOUTH CAROLINA
  • PHOTO OF BIGFOOT?
  • BARMANU, A YETI-LIKE CREATURE
  • WENDIGO, SKINWALKER OR WHAT?
  • BROWN MEN OF THE MOORS


  • WAWA GRANDE


  • BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. — A man claims footprints in a Cleveland County wooded area are not human nor animal but possibly evidence of ...

    LAKE AND SEA MONSTER NEWS

    The hunt for Lake and Sea Monsters is probably the most iconic branch of Cryptozoology. Following our successful Mystery Cat and BHM Study Groups, we feel that these sightings should also be archived and published in a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. Curated by Sally Watts and Richard Muirhead.

  • LOCH NESS: Why the Nessies of Scotland are Superna...
  • LAKE CHAMPLAIN ETC: Thar be monsters: Filmmaker ...
  • LOCH NESS: Now with added Freeman
  • THAILAND: I think it is a fleshy tuberous plant
  • LOCH NESS: Steve Feltham to appear on global cine...

  • LOCH NESS: Was the Loch Ness Monster really an ELE...
  • THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN: STILL WAITING

    The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
    Thank you very much to everybody who has written over the past few days, sending their good wishes. Mother is still in hospital, although she is up and about, and they are talking about discharging her tomorrow, but whether that actually happens remains to be seen. Corinna is not very well at the moment, Archie has a sore lump on hos leg which I think is an infected tick bite, and Graham is still in America. Carl and I will be dealing with all this stuff as best we can, so please remember us in your thoughts and prayers.
    and I suspect that she will be for the next few days, at least. However, today she was sitting up by the side of the bed, and eating, which has got to be a good thing. We shall be going to see her later, probably tying it all in with collecting Carl, who is down here to help us hold the fort while Graham is in America. Things are rather fraught at the moment, but I expect they will all come together eventually. These things usually do.
    Please remember us in your thoughts and prayers.
    ER EDITOR SEZ: THE DIGITAL PRAYER FLAG
    You guys have been doing massive amounts of praying for Corinna. I believe that the outpouring of good vibes transmitted electronically, being a little like a Tibetan prayer flag. Find out more:
    https://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/p/a-prayer-flag-lung-…
    Blessed be.
    CHECK OUT THE GONZO STORES:
    AND OTHER STUFF FEATURING VARIOUS GONZO CONTRIBUTORS:
    Our webTV show:
    https://www.facebook.com/OnTheTrack/posts/632561497117057
    And if you fancy supporting it on Patreon:
    https://www.patreon.com/CFZ
    And by the way chaps and chappesses, a trip to the Jon Downes megastore may seem to be in order:
    https://gonzotesting.blogspot.com/…/a-notion-of-shopkeepers…
    Meanwhile I continue to pretend that I am a popstar, because now I have sold eight whole copies of my new album Coldharbour. If I continue at this rate I will get a silver disc sometime at the beginning of the next millenium. Coldharbour, by the way, can be found here: https://jondownes1.bandcamp.com/releases
    I think it is really rather good, but then again I would say that wouldn't I?
    AND THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE GONZO MAGAZINE:
    Gonzo Weekly #357/8
    THE CRIMSON ISSUE
    http://www.gonzoweekly.com/
    In this remarkably disciplined issue Doug goes to see King Crimson, Alan goes all psychedelic at O.Z.O.R.A in Hungary, Mad Iccy meets Roddy Radiation of The Specials, we go on patrol with PAART, Bart goes to see Yes et al in the Royal Affair, Jon has his PIP Assessment, and Graham brings us bad news about Ginger Baker
    Hail Eris!
    And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney and Friday Night Progressive AND Strange Fruit, there are columns from Kev Rowland and Mr Biffo, C J Stone, and Roy Weard, but Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna are on hiatus. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and antichinuses who have lost their shoes (OK, nothing to do with tiny marsupials who are searching for their footwear, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
    This issue features:
    Personal Independence Payments (PIP), Leonard Cohen, Adam Cohen, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Prog Awards, Thom Yorke, Sinead O'Connor, The Rolling Stones, Yes, Asia, Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy, Richard Freeman, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Richard Theodore Otcasek, Edward Joseph Mahoney, Ida Laila, Daniel Dale Johnston, Jeffrey Craig "Jeff" Fenholt, Dalibor Andonov, Anthony Paul Mills, John Cohen, Mick Schauer, Larry Wallis, Harold Mabern, Jr., Yonrico Scott, Robert C. Hunter, Rick Wakeman, Gerry Beckley, The Waterson Family, The Fall, Richard Wright and Dave Harris - Zee, Chasing the Monsoon, Doug Harr, King Crimson, Pittsburgh Aviation Animal Rescue Team (PAART), Alan Dearling, O.Z.O.R.A. Festival, Steve Hillage, Miquette Giraudy, Youth, Raja Ram, Basil Brooks, Naxatrax, BaBa ZuLa, Zion Train, Raja Ram, Eat Static, Mad Iccy (Icarus Ruoff), Roddy 'Radiation' Byers, Kev Rowland, Wayfarer, Witchskull, Witchsorrow, Yesternight, Kenny Mitchell, Greenrose Faire, Tony Klinger, Hawkwind, Ginger Baker, Jonathan Downes, The Wild Colonial Boy, Martin Springett, Joan Aiken
    And the last few issues are:
    Issue 357-8 (King Crimson)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-355-6.html
    Issue 355-6 (Elfin Bow)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-355-6.html
    Issue 353-4 (Melanie S Jane)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-353-4.html
    Issue 351-2 (Royal Affair)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CE…/gonzo-351-2-fvxuatzgf.html
    Issue 349-50 (Experimental Sonic Machines)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-349-50.htm
    Issue 347-8 (Gary Duncan)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-347-8.html
    Issue 345-6 (RDF)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-345-6.html
    Issue 343-4 (Auburn)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-343-4.html
    Issue 341-42 (America)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-341-2.html
    Issue 339-40 (Kev Rowland)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-339-40.html
    Issue 337-38 (Zee)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-337-8.html
    Issue 335-36 (Raz)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-335-6.html
    Issue 333-34 (Nepal)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-333-4.html
    Issue 331-32 (Scott Walker)
    https://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo-331-2.html
    All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
    You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
    http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/
    SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
    * 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: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk
    * 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 60 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, three other cats, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention Archie and the Cats?

    BIG CAT ROUND UP

    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 they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. 

    The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.



    THE NEW VOLUME OF COLLECTED EDITIONS IS NOW AVAILABLE

    Together with my glamorous assistant, the ever lovely Wally the Comedy Rhinoceros, I am proud to announce that you can now buy copies of the long awaited collected editions of Animals + Men at a special low price...




    Yes, boys and girls, the lovely Wally has insisted that we knock two quid off the retail price, and slash the postage costs for people who order the magazine from this link.

    Cor Blimey Guv'nor, we must be bonkers! What the Blinking Flip are we thinking? And yes, although the price is in UK Pounds Sterling (GBP) the offer remains the same all across the world. Those of you who live on other planets will have to contact Wally direct.

    And just in case you need more details of this premium product...

    Page Count: 322
    Spine Width: 0.67310  in
    Weight: 1.001  lbs

    ISBN/SKU:9781909488601
    ISBN Complete:978-1-909488-60-1

    Although Animals +Men had been available in hard copy for twenty years by then, we made the decision to publish it for free as an online flip-book, as well as publishing it, perfect bound, in the more traditional format. This was a great success, but sales of the traditional format continued to fall and – eventually – it got to the stage that it was no longer even partially viable to publish individual issues in hard copy.

    Although the business ethic of CFZ Press (if you can actually call it that) was never profit orientated, it had been designed around the more traditional publishing models, and as these speedily began to change, our profit margin (such as it was) vanished like a sandcastle at high tide. So, we had to drastically rethink what we were doing and how we were doing it. And so, reluctantly, the decision was made to eschew publishing individual issues in hard copy, and to publish omnibus collections in book form.

    Coming imminently, a little later than we had hoped, is the first of these collections. I hope that you enjoy it, and find it interesting.

    I am particularly proud of what I have achieved in the last twenty-five years of Animals & Men. It is not only – as far as I am aware – the longest standing cryptozoological publication in the English speaking world, but it espouses a model of cryptozoology that places it well within the remit of the natural sciences, rather than as some peculiar branch of paranormal research. This is something that I, and the other leading lights of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, feel is utterly important, because – in our opinion – the internecine squabbles which take place across the internet about such hot topics as to whether ‘bigfoot has a cloaking device’ or whether ‘alien big cats are actually extraterrestrial in origin’ are completely counter-productive, and do nothing except to drag what little good name cryptozoology still has through the gutter. Cryptozoology is not, or at least should not be, the study of ghosts, phantoms, or semi-decomposed dead raccoons, and – from the beginning – the CFZ has done its best to foster an environment where cryptids are seen as real animals, and studied on that basis.

    But, of course, we are not the Centre for Mystery Zoology. We are the Centre for Fortean Zoology.

    From the beginning, I have always been interested in the stranger and non-animate phenomena that pepper our cultural psyche. Indeed, much though I have spent the last twenty-five years trying to impress upon people that cryptozoology should be seen as a very real branch of the natural sciences, the book for which I am best known is – of course – my exhaustive look at the Cornish Owlman. It is this dichotomy; Flesh and Blood Cryptid vs. Zooform Phenomena that has fuelled the way that the Centre for Fortean Zoology has thought and acted over the past quarter century. And, I believe, it is reflected successfully in the contents of this long overdue book.


    NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Wednesday

    ON THIS DAY IN -  1812 - During the War of 1812 American forces captured two British brigs, the Detroit and the Caledonia.
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk


  • 'Russian spy whale': the disturbing history of mil...
  • Turtle study shows gender lifespan differences lik...
  • 'Historic day for Scotland' as beavers get protect...
  • European eel found to spawn across 2000 km wide re...


  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day)