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

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

NEIL ARNOLD: Crypto Stories From The Illustrated Police News Part 3

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...

From 1877 – FEARFUL ENCOUNTER WITH A BOA CONSTRICTOR: ‘A very terrible story reaches us from Texas. A lady, the wife of a merchant named Wilkinson, was, while on the borders of a forest, attacked by a huge boa constrictor, which wound itself around her body, evidently with the intention of crushing her to death. Mr Wilkinson was aroused by his wife’s piercing shrieks, and hastened at once to the spot. Happily, he did not lose his presence of mind, and he at once proceeded to attack the hideous reptile. At such a time moments seem ages. Mr Wilkinson severed the head of the reptile from its body, besides inflicting other injuries. Mrs Wilkinson, during this double encounter became insensible, and it is anticipated that the shock to the system is of so serious a nature that a long time must necessarily elapse before she can hope to recover from the effects of the trial she has undergone.’

From 1876 – A GIRL SEIZED BY A GORILLA: We have received a short report of an incident which occurred a short time ago in Western Africa. Our correspondent gives the following account :- ‘Mr and Mrs Osgood, a Canadian merchant and his wife, have been travelling through several parts of Western Africa. Mr Osgood had betaken himself to the woods, accompanied by a guide and native servant, his object being to shoot wild fowl. His wife and daughter were left on a spot upon which the party had encamped some hours previously. While Mrs Osgood was engaged in domestic duties, her little girl Clara, who was chasing butterflies, uttered a loud scream and her mother was horrified at seeing her clasped in the arms of a monstrous gorilla who was about to bear off. The unhappy lady was perfectly frantic and luckily her husband, who was not far distant, was attracted to the spot by her cries. One barrel of his gun was loaded, he took steady aim, and the whole charge of shot entered the back and posterior of the gorilla, who dropped the child and scampered off, howling in pain.’

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