LIZZY CLANCY: Laying for England!

It is always nice to be able to introduce you all to a new guest blogger. Possibly the nicest thing about the CFZ bloggo is that it is a living, breathing community, and new people arrive on a regular basis. I can't tell you anything about Liz, apart from the fact that she bought some books from us at Uncon, briefly spoke to Richard, and had a charmingly old-fashioned habit of referring to me as `Mr Downes`, when everyone else calls me `Jon` or `Hey You` (or sometimes something more scatological), until I told her not to.

She is also the author of a charming and very elegantl;y written fortean novella called The Second Level which I strongly urge you all to buy at this link:



http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/095601156X/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

She is obviously one to watch, and she tells me in her latest e:mail that she is getting "addicted" to writing for the CFZ bloggo.

Back in 1941 when Patriotism was still okay and our men were off fighting world war two, support back home abounded, often from surprising corners.

According to the Rochdale Observer, in August of that year, Mr J. Herbert of the Spotland area (who, incidentally, had previously been a Rochdale Association footballer) was tending to his chickens and came across the remarkable egg shown in the photo.

The V for Victory Campaign had begun earlier that year in January when Belgian refugee Victor Delavelaye suggested on BBC radio that the 22nd letter of the alphabet become the emblem of the allies against Nazism. The idea was, according to Mr Delavelaye, that "by seeing this sign, always the same, infinitely repeated, [the German] will understand that he is surrounded, encircled by an immense crowd of citizens eagerly awaiting his first moment of weakness, watching for his first failure."

I do hope Mr Herbert’s patriotic hen was commended for her brave effort in support of the allied movement, or at least given an extra portion of feed. Sadly such gallinaceous gallantry in the Spotland area is unlikely ever to recur since the only chicken within a one-mile radius is minced and waiting to be fried in one of the many kebab shops we have to choose from.

DALE DRINNON: Appendix to Cryptozoological Checklist - Former Checklist Summary 1

Dale started at IUPUI hoping for a degree in Biology before changing to Anthropology and as a result has a very diverse background in Geology, Zoology, Paleontology, Anatomy, archaeology, psychology, Sociology, Literature, Latin, Popular Culture, Film criticism, Mythology and Folklore,and various individual human cultures especially mentioning those of the Pacific and the Americas. He has a working knowledge of every human fossil find up until his graduation and every important Cryptozoological sighting up to that point. He has been an amateur along on Archaeological excavations in Indiana as well as doing some local tracking of Bigfoot there. Now he is on the CFZ bloggo..


Section I of former Checklists. Section I is the category most acceptable to conventional science and for the most part contains animals very nearly like known forms, color variants of known forms, disputed forms for which there exist photographic evidence, specimens preserved in museums or mere matters of disputed taxonomic status.

This is an area of Cryptozoology in which ALL of these could be "known" species and hence not deserving of further attention by the most stringent definition of the field. I do so consider that these are not really Cryptozoological subjects.

Heuvelmans
1. Gosse's beaked whale
2. Alua whale
3. Greek dolphin
4. Senegal dolphin
5. Illigan whale
6. Outsized giant squids
7. Octopus (Otoctopus) giganteus
8. Lake Setani shark
9. Mauretanian wild dog
10. Atlas bear
11. Atlas python
12. Blue tiger, black tiger
13. Outsized reticulated pythons
14. Chinese white bear (like US Olympic black bears, which are white)
15. Kimos (pygmies on Madagascar, possibly human)
16. Ufiti and koolookamba, outsized chimpanzeess
17. Pygmy gorilla
18. Spotted lion
19. Other oddly colored African cats
20. Mngwa as a giant golden cat (which do have a streaked/spotted
and a grey phase)
21. Pygmy elephants
22. Water rhino/pygmy rhino/ African one-horned rhinoceros
23. Ethiopian ?hyrax
24. Spotted bushbuck
25. American lion (even if residual of extinct form, same species as
African lion)
26. Andean wolf
27. Onza
28. Waitoreke (even if "only" a platypus)
29. Thylacines, on Australia and on Tasmania
30. Surrey pumas
31. Australian pumas
32. Felis levantina
33. Possible giant montpelier snakes
34. Quaggas (probably only a color phase of zebras in the first place)
35. Nandi bears, whether black ratels or outsized baboons. Dimensions
quoted for the "Koddoelo" can be matched against the largest "known" baboons.
36.Oceanic hairy pygmies on Malaita
37. on Guadacanal
38. Vui/wui, same in New Hebrides
39. Vele, same on Fiji
(36-39 Mu=menehune on Hawaii, maero on New Zealand, all displaced Celebes "apes" confused with earlier settlers)
40. Wildmen in Europe and the MidEast (wudewasa and seirim)
41. Wildmen in Central Asia (kaptars and almas)
42. Wildmen in the Orient (probably including Orang pendek as a smaller form)
43. Wildmen in Australia (yowies)
44 and 45., Wildmen probably included in lump listings for Africa and South America.
(40-45 can all be provisionally considered one category: Additionally, they must all
be considered most likely Homo sapiens or some closely related species, hence not "Unknown" at all)

Shuker
1. Dimorphic beaked whale
2. St. Helena elephant seals
3. Beebee's manta
4. Planetosphaera pelagica
5. Lophenteropneusts
6. Deep-sea spider
7. Bigfin squid
8. The thing (giant polychaete worm)
9. Horned Sunda wildcat, possibly only pathological
10. Venomous blackfish
11. Hungarian reed wolf
12. Greek chameleon
13. Steller's white sea-raven
14. Qattara cheetah
15. Tailed loris
16. Pale Loris
17.Chuti/Nepalese hyena
18. Seah malong poo
19. Horned jackal, possibly only pathological
20. Quang khen
21. Mangden
22. Kting voar
23. Argus bipunctatus
24. Elephant-dung bat
25. Giant bushbaby
26.Giant aye-aye
27. Oliver, probably only a mutant chimp.
28. Wobo, probably equals Mngwa
29. Makala, presumed extinct
30. Senegal stone partridge
31. Sudd gallinule
32. Kenyan black swift
33. Green touraco
34.Mexican ruffed cat
35. Van Roosmalen's jaguar
36. Tigerstriped Peruvian cat
37. Speckled jaguar
38. Yama puma
39. Peruvian jungle lion
40. Pygmy brown bear
41. Mitla ('catlike dog')
42. 6 forms of Birds-of-paradise
43. Delcourt's giant gecko
44. Shamanu
45. Bornean babyrusa
46. Schomburgk's deer
47. Pink headed duck
48. Eastern puma (including its darker color variant)
49.Arizona (and Southern USA) jaguar
50.Nesophrontid insectivores
51. Glaucus macaw
52. Australian Tasmanian devils
53. Hoan Kien turtle, actually an identified species
54. Sapo de loma (I basically do not see how this differs from the common Marine Toad)
55. Malagassy giant hawkmoth (this has subsequently become "known")
56. Yamamaya (possibly ony a dwarfed Japanese type of tiger)
57. Malagnira (ultrasmall lemur)
58. Domench's Pseudo-goat (clawed goat, also possibly deformed)

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday’s News Today

Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

Ok, time for the latest cryptozoology related news from the CFZ daily cryptozoology news blog and a bad pun too:

Afghans issue first wildlife list
Hummingbirds 'faster than jets'
Bear bites jogger after chase
Chimp Bites Off Boss's Finger At Knut's Zoo
Welcome to the Spiderlab
Snake slips show slither secret
Lion sighting reported
Tadpole downpour stumps Japanese meteorologists
Now, that is a ‘tad’ unusual.

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday’s News Today

Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

Stop, what you’re doing now and pay attention. It is of vital importance that you read every one of the following cryptozoology related news stories from the CFZ’s daily cryptozoology news blog and memorise them. Why? Well should your vessel be captured by the king of Spain and you are unable to singe his beard, you can distract him by relating these tales and following bad pun while you make good your escape.

(Yeah, I know it makes no sense but nobody reads this bit anyway and they just skip to the news links, so it matters not).

Giants of the seas arrive in Cornwall
Isolated Forest Patches Lose Species, Diversity
Stone Age hunting traps found deep in Great Lakes
'Stoned' dog sniffs out a cannabis farm
Do Dinosaurs Still Exist?
Meteorites may have brought building blocks of life to Earth


What did the meteorite say just before it crashed into a man?
“Prepare to ‘meteor’ doom!”

NEIL ARNOLD: Hey, hey, we’re the (mini) monkeys!

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...

Flick through a majority of UFO and folklore-related books and you will come across tales of mini-people, fairies, imps and tiny demons. But have you heard the one about the miniature monkeys ?

It took place on the 18th June 1980 at Lumut, a village in Malaysia, and it remains a case which has intrigued me for many years. This wasn’t one of those cases of hazy description or where one witness was present. On this occasion many pupils at the local school and two members of staff were present. The first stirrings emerged at around 10:30 am when two twelve-year old girls were on rubbish duty and depositing some trash outside. They were confronted by two figures. Both were suited, one in white the other in black and they carried packs and held rod-like objects. The beings resembled monkeys, stood only a few inches in height and seemed to be hovering above the ground. The girls fled and told staff, who also heard that a couple of hours previous another girl, whilst visiting the toilet, encountered a large ape-like beast which suddenly shrank to no more than two-inches tall! The girl fainted and when she awoke there was no sign.

Some of the young boys at the school went out into the grounds to search for the humanoids and came across three of them. From hereon the story remains vague, as some witnesses claimed they lost sight of the creatures, and a few other boys stated an alien craft picked them up. Many cases involving such mini-people have been often connected to UFOs, but this maybe the only way to explain such critters for those who have no other explanation, as surely such beings do not live in the woods ? We have blamed many mysteries on the aliens, from crop circles, to cattle mutilations and the Men in Black. There is of course no evidence to suggest that mini-monkey monsters are roaming our gardens, schools or deep space, but why should such things appear ?

Are these creatures something akin to boggarts, bogeys, sprites, brownies, goblins, imps and the many other folkloric entities ? I’m sure we’ll never know.

THE CATS OF UPPER MINSTER: Part Ten - General Norman

The other week, as an amusing one-off Tim Matthews, wrote a silly short story spoofing some of the more ridiculous exploits of various self-styled big cat researchers over the years.

It was so popular that he wrote another one, and now - by public demand - it has become a serial. Every other day will see an episode of Timmo's new Fortean soap opera The Cats of Upper Minster. And having read the first few episodes I can confirm that it is bloody smashing and highly amusing. "I'll carry on until it stops being funny" says Tim, and you can't say fairer than that!

The General was thinking about the cat too. He was also thinking about fame and fortune, getting one up on his imagined competitors, especially those clever clogs from the FRS with all their damned credibility and scientific know how. It had even got to the point where, instead of Paranormalists, people who attended David Icke lectures and Ufologists getting involved, they had started to produce a magazine about Natural History! I mean what next, the General thought to himself.

He’d been into UFOs once, and now what he called Alien Big Cats. To him it almost didn’t matter what subject he was dealing with as long as he was Top Dog and he’d do anything to stay there. Big fish, small pond. That was as near to the twin toed amphiuma of the FRS he was going to get, he told himself. Often, within the promotion of the Paranormal, people with little or no education or training got involved precisely because little intelligence was required to “make it” onto the speaker’s table at a conference. Blind belief, an occasional show of loyalty and the well placed stab in the back were the required elements to be a success and the General had gutfuls of talent in these directions.

And often, as he knew, the more shocking rubbish you put out there on the internet the most people took you seriously. David Icke had proved that. The General’s main talent was for making a splash. His ex wife Dawn has always said that if he’d jumped into a swimming pool the water would jump out in horror but, despite what he considered a messy divorce when she burned all his Hulk Hogan magazines and posters, the General believed, like Hitler, that he was mightiest alone.

Sitting in his C+C (Command and Control) vehicle, a burger van cum gathering point for other members of the ABC Team, the General surveyed his empire; a couple of walkie talkies with the squelch buttons turned up for lifelike “police hiss”, a faded yet current Ordnance Survey map of Dorset featuring the villages of Upper, Lower and Little Minster, a half drunk cup of coffee in a mug with stuff growing in it that would fascinate scientists for years to come and a packet of Tesco value range digestives, “for energy” as he would tell his shock (ing) troops when they arrived.

Just then, a knock on the door. “Helllooo, anyone in theeere”? said a female voice.

“Errrrmmm, come in,” said The General, semi panicking that someone not under his control might be wanting to speak with him. Struggling to get out of his seat – well he was 18 stone – he opened the door to discover a moody yet confident looking teenager with long dark hair and red streaks staring back at him.

“Alright then?” said the girl. “My name’s Ellie, Ellie Macpherson. I’m looking for the ABC man.”

“Errrmm yes love I am he,” said the General, always able to muster pomposity on demand. “What can I do for you love?” Ellie thought he sounded and looked like the sleazy salesman from KirbyVax who’d dumped powder all over her mother’s bungalow floor a few years ago and insisted that £2500 for the Ultimate Cleaning System (“it can even be used on the dog,” said the man) was a “lifetime bargain and cheap at twice the price.”

What, she wondered to herself, had her best friend Frieda Fox got her into this time...?

“Big cats? I’ve seen a few locally and I think I can lead you right to them,” said Ellie. She was a sharp girl in many ways but was attempting not only to remember her script but also to seem as natural as possible - not to mention a bit thicker than usual. She’d been told to ‘dumb down’ for the General. It had also been suggested that his own massive ego would mean that he’d believe that she saw him as the all-important Hunter of the Mystery Beast. The General, meanwhile, was thanking his dear old mum for this bit of luck. More cannon fodder against the FCS. More media fodder for Channel X TV!

“Tell me more,” said the General, sounding ever like an enthusiastic child. “What can you tell me about the creature.”

“Well,” replied Ellie, trying really hard not to laugh, “I’ve seen it change, right. In front of my very eyes. One minute a big cat, black, long, and the next minute just like a demon flying through the air.”

“Perfect,” cried the General, forgetting himself.

“Well, it is good, isn’t it?” teased Ellie. “Look, in the morning why don’t I take you and your friends down to where I saw it and we can scope things out a bit? Thing is,” she added, naughtily, Scully style, “you’ve been looking in the wrong place. You need to look on the other side of the village. This thing isn’t gonna hide in woods and run around open fields. You need to be looking by the river. After all, most Paranormal activity takes place near water I’ve heard, but you’d know more about that and that’s why I came to see you. You’re the expert, not me. I’m just one of the little people the system ignores. People don’t take me seriously, right? Think I’m mad. And those sightings in the graveyard made me seriously start to wonder what was going on here. About my own sanity, really. Sitting drinking a few cans, with my mates, nothing serious like, and then these figures just rode acrosssss the skkkkyy.”

As she spoke she looked rather gormlessly into the distance and started to make slow, sweeping movements with her hands as if to indicate what she had seen. Not even one of the Most Haunted crew could have pulled off a better blag than this.

The General was, like Ellie, over the moon with her performance. He clapped his hands and started rubbing them together like a used car salesman who’s just sold a £150 wreck for £1500. Reaching for an “ABC Report Form” (in brown and white, camo colours...) he glanced at Ellie who was staring rather vacuously into space and looking bored with her hands in her pockets. He could hear the hum of her MP3 player in her jacket pocket – a camo jacket no less – and he was rather taken with her Avril Lavigne look and pink leggings. Her hair was black and flame red and the fringe partly obscured her face so it was a bit hard to tell what she was thinking. She’d look good on TV or video, he thought.

“Your place is with us,” he declared. “Kid like you, difficult background, no aim in life, bit of a rebel as I can tell, realises there’s stuff going on locally. All these boring old farts with their quaintness, tea sets, family portraits and just-so lives haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on out there. But they’re gonna find out and you, my girl, can help us unlock the mystery for good...”

A SLICE OF LIFE AT HARTLAND WILDLIFE RESCUE

People at the last Weird Weekend will have noticed a bric-a-brac stall incongrously situated between a bookstall and a specialisr publisher.

Behind the stall you would have seen a pretty young lady called Beth, and on the sunday she was joined by two newborn kittens which were - I think - a bigger draw to Weird Weekenders of all ages than anyone except possibly Ronan.

Her name is Beth Tyler-King and for years she has been involved in Wildlife Rescue, first in Bristol, and now in Hartland. She has become a good friend of the CFZ, and like all our friends she has been persuaded to write for the bloggo...

She writes regularly to us giving us information about the animals she has, and we help when we can. With her permission I am excerpting a few slices fropm recent letters to give you a brief insight into her extraordinary, but rewarding, life..

Had a mad day yesterday! Picked up four animals, two at two vets each. A duck, a hedgehog, a baby crow and a jackdaw. The baby crow has rickets, but its so sweet and funny! He has a tantrum when you tried to feed him and spits the food everywhere and then hangs upside down off your fingers!!!! Anyway he is doing well and tolerating meal times much better!

The baby hogs are doing well, I have a baby housemartin snuggled up with them, its so sweet and also picked up another jackdaw today too with a bad eye but it doesnt need treatment.

My barn owl that will go to Kaye's is going from strength to strength. The feathers are looking glossy and now and its putting on weight. Another couple of weeks and it should be ready to be released.

The next day she wrote:

I am afraid I lost the little crow. He went downhill vomiting everything up. When I asked my friend Rose who runs animal sanctuary at Holsworthy she said that as he had probably been the last to get any good food from the mum (that explains the rickets) then his body wasnt used to good food, so to go back to basics and put him on a liquid diet, which I did and he was able to swallow liquid better. He was under a heat lamp by this time but next morning I found him dead. such a shame. In this business you are damned if you do and damned if you dont, all you can is your best.

I am at Broad Parkham farm today (Open farm day in devon) and doing a little talk between 12-1pm. taking baby hogs and baby sparrow with me that is very vocal!!!! Also got a little questionnaire for kids that will win a prize for best one, that ll make sure they might listen to me then!!!