Dinosaur Survival In The Americas?

Previously I've looked at stories of dinosaur survival into the modern era from Africa and Australia. Both interesting if completely bonkers examples of the genre, I now submit for your approval some more stories from the jungles of South America and elsewhere...

Alavaro Mesquita was a native Amazonian, who claimed to have a saurian encounter on the shore a swamp in the Rio Purús/Rio Juruá area of the Amazon basin. Whilst fishing along the shore he encountered he saw two red eyes high above the ground. Getting closer he saw what he described as a bipedal reptile, most closely resembling a Camptosaurus

He shot at the animal which fled deep into the swamp. He recounted his tale to a skeptical Rolf Blomberg, who was collecting interviews for his 1966 book Rio Amazonas

Another story, a creationist favourite, comes to us from a 1883 letter to the Scientific American called "A Bolivian Saurian,"

"“Sir,—The ‘Anglo-Brazilian Times,’ March 24th, 1883, says that the Brazilian Minister at La Paz, Bolivia, has remitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Rio photographs of drawings of an extraordinary Saurian killed on the Beni after receiving thirty-six balls. By order of the President of Bolivia the dried body, which had been preserved at Asuncion, was sent to La Paz. It is 12 metres long from snout to point of the tail, which latter is flattened. Besides the anterior head, it has, 4 metres behind, two small but completely formed heads rising from the back. All three have much resemblance to the head of a dog. The legs are short, and end in formidable claws. The legs, belly, and lower part of the throat appear defended by a kind of scale armour, and all the back is protected by a still thicker and double cuirass, starting from behind the ears of the anterior head, and continuing to the tail. The neck is long, and the belly large and almost dragging on the ground. Professor Gilveti, who examined the beast, thinks it is not a monster, but a member of a rare or almost lost species, as the Indians in some parts of Bolivia use small earthen vases of identical shape, and probably copied from Nature.”"

A possible overweight Bolivian sauropod (with multiple heads)?

The fascinating adventurer Percy Fawcett also claimed to have encountered a sauropod, which he claimed was a diplodocus, along the Brazil/Peru border. This sighting occurred during a 1907 expedition on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society to map the border area. Fawcett is worthy of a post all to himself... check out his Wikipedia page and more info here. His son, Brian, later sketched the scene he imagined when he father saw the footprints of this large creature. Note the tail mark dragging in the ground, an artists imagination running away with him as current scientific opinion (and common sense) suggests dinosaurs, especially sauropods, didn't drag their tails!

Another, more detailed, 1907 encounter by Franz Herrmann Schmidt can found here. Reports of this nature by explorers in the Brazil/Peru area in the first half of the 20th century are relatively common. Later in the century we get lots of more recounting of native stories of large Mokele-Mbembe like monsters.

If you think the tales of dinosaurs in the jungles of South America are off-the-wall, just check out some stories from with the United States of America!

In a letter published in the August 22, 1982, issue of Empire Magazine, a Sunday supplement, Myrtle Snow of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, wrote that in May 1935, when she was three years old, she saw "five baby dinosaurs" near her hometown. A few months later a local farmer shot one after it took some of his sheep. "My grandfather took us to see it the next morning," she said. "It was about seven feet tall, was gray, had a head like a snake, short front legs with claws that resembled chicken feet, large stout back legs and a long tail."

But these were not her only sightings. There were two more: (1) "1 saw another one in a cave in 1937, but it was dark green." And (2) "On October 23, 1978, as I was returning from Chama New Mexico, about 7:30 P.m., in a driving rain, I saw another one going through the field towards the place where I had seen the one in 1937."

In 1934 a South Dakota farmer claimed that a giant, four-legged reptile forced his tractor off the road before disappearing into nearby Campbell Lake. Investigators found huge tracks on the shore. Prior to this sighting sheep and other small animals had been disappearing mysteriously. Source

So as always no evidence (surprisingly the Bolivian Saurian's corpse has never been located!), but plenty of explorers tales!

Picture of Camptosaurus used under license from FunkMonk

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The Beast Of Bray Road

Werewolves have been part of the myths and legends of our ancestors for centuries, leading to a great deal of fear (and no doubt a great deal of mob "justice" on misidentified "werewolves"). But for all the terror movies can add to a subject (just see our reactions to sharks after Jaws came out) in the case of werewolves they have served only to make them an ever more distant, fantasy concept. But perhaps, just perhaps, there is more to the legends than meets the eye... 


Werewolves??, I hear you cry with derision. Well maybe that's not the best word for it as it comes attached with all sorts of transformational baggage. Instead think of bipedal wolves, the canine equivalent of bigfoot perhaps, or a "wolfman". Whatever gets you in the mood. 


Today we shall be concentrating on a particular example, a creature known as the Beast of Bray Road (pretty damn awesome name if you ask me!), but in case you think tales of wolfpeople are somehow isolated incidents then please take a look here and here.


Sightings of the Beast started in earnest relatively recently in the late 1980s, although there are some older reports. Bray Road is near Delavan, Wisconsin and is the location of the first few sightings, hence the name of the Beast, although sightings have been reported across Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Michigan. 


In 1989 Lorianne Endrizzi was driving along Bray Road when she thought she saw a person hunched over by the roadside. She slowed down to take a closer look. She was no more than six feet away from it. Endrizzi clearly saw a beast with grayish brown hair, fangs, pointed ears and glowing yellow eyes (which is what you'd expect a canine's eyes to look like when reflecting headlights). "His face was … long and snouty, like a wolf" she said. Unusually she reported that this muscular creature was crouched on it's rear legs whilst holding a prey animal in it's human like hands (sketch can be found at top of this page)


She had been prompted to report her story only after hearing rumours of a more recent encounter (the year then being 1999) from a lady named Doristine Gipson. On 31st October 1999 Doristine was on Bray Road, about half a mile from where Lorianne had had her own encounter a decade before, when she felt her right front tire leave the ground as if she had hit something. She stopped the car and had a look on the road but could see nothing. But as she looked around, peering into the darkness, she saw a form race towards her. She managed to throw herself back into the car but as she tried to pull away the creature jumped onto the bonnet. Thankfully it had been raining and the wetness of the car and the movement meant it slid straight back off and she was able to escape. Later that evening she was taking a girl trick or treating and had to drive past the spot. She again saw a form lying on the side of the road where she had left it but quickly rushed away as the form began to move again.


There are older reports:  

"It all started one night in 1936 when a lone man driving down a dark stretch of US 18, just east of Jefferson City, saw a strange, hairy creature that stood at least six feet high and had a canine muzzle and strange three-fingered hands.

The beast was digging up one of the many Native American burial mounds that dapple Wisconsin’s countryside. The witness, a local named Mark Schackelman, drove on, but returned the next night to see if he could find evidence of the creature. Schackelman reports walking over to the mound, only to find the man-wolf standing there, stinking of decaying meat and growling a strange, three-syllable word that sounded like “Gadara.” The witness goes on to report that, understanding the creature to be some agent of evil, he began praying and slowly backing away until he reached his car and was able to escape." Source

And then:

Year: 1964

Location: Jefferson County, Wisconsin

Dennis Fewless was driving along Highway 89 around midnight when he saw a figure running across the road. When his headlights caught sight of the creature, it was eerily similar to werewolf seen in 1936 just a couple of miles away. Large and muscular, it stood around seven feet tall, covered in dark brown hair, with a dog-like face.

Fewless saw the creature run across the road, jump over a barbed-wire fence, and disappear into a corn field.

Fewless waited until the sun was up the next day to return to the scene of the werewolf sighting. He had hoped to find tracks to prove the size of the beast, but the ground was too hard. He was able to find the place in the cornfield where the werewolf had entered. The stalks of corn were broken and askew in such a way that supported the theory that a man-beast of massive size had been there. Source

There are further sightings listed here. Plus a few theories as to what the creature might be (in brief: a wolf, a coyote, a dog, a shunka warak’in, or a hoax). Personally? The sightings last for extremely short periods of time, usually in poor visibility and in the sort of lonely places one might start to let their imagination wander. I know, I know, this is all very dismissive and every paranormal researcher out there is preparing to hit me over the head with a piece of electronic equipment but... I've seen things myself. I know the human mind can see all sorts of things. There are plenty of brilliant and interesting stories here. But are there any wolfpeople in Wisconsin? I don't think so. But hey, I would say that! Linda S. Godfrey is the resident expert over there, and I'd suggest you check out her books to see what you think.  

Further Reading

Hunting the American Werewolf Linda S. Godfrey (UK Amazon Link)

The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing Wisconsin's Werewolf Linda S. Godfrey (UK Amazon Link)

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Giant Spiders

Bill Gibbons, he of Mokele Mbmeme fame, has also recorded stories of another cryptid in the jungles of Africa (in this case the Democratic Republic of Congo): a giant spider.

"I first became aware of a giant ground-dwelling spider through Miss Margaret Lloyd, formerly of Rhodesia and now living in England. Her parents, Reginald and Margurite Lloyd were exploring the interior of the old Belgian Congo in 1938 when they spotted something crossing the jungle track ahead of them. At first they took the object to be a large jungle cat or a monkey on all fours. When they stopped their vehicle (an old Ford truck) to allow the animal to pass, they were thunderstruck to see that it was a very large brown spider, similar in its appearance to a tarantula, with a leg span of at least four or five feet. Mr. Lloyd trembled so much with excitement that he was unable to retrieve his camera in time to take a snap, and Mrs. Lloyd was so distraught that she wanted to return home (Rhodesia) immediately. This creature is known as the J’ba Fofi; J’ba meaning “great” or “giant” Fofi meaning “spider” (spiders of all kinds are called Fofi)."

Certainly doesn't make me want to take a trip through the Congo without a very large gun!

I will admit to having a soft spot for movies like Eight Legged Freaks

So is there any more evidence for this massive creature? Not really... the "facts" as far as they can be ascertained, thanks to Karl Shuker's Extraordinary Animals Revisited, are that the spider is claimed by members of the Bake pygmy tribe of the area to be yellow with a purple abdomen when a spiderling, growing to up to 3 feet in length and brown in colour as an adult. Its eggs are supposed to be the size of peanuts. It builds hides that resemble the huts of the local tribes, and is supposed to be able to build webs that are capable of capturing birds and small forest antelopes. It has been said to eat humans if given the chance.

There are also other stories. Monster Quest recently did a show on giant spiders in the Amazon said to be big enough to attack even humans but mainly "livestock" (for which read chickens). This is pretty similar to reports, now quite likely substantiated, of a Chicken Eating Spider which appears to exhibit the strange, for a spider, behaviour of communal living and hunting!



The problem with spiders getting to any size much bigger than a dinner plate is the level of oxygen in the atmosphere. This causes problems with the growth of land invertebrates (as per this article) which is why in the past we had giant dragonflies and arachnids but not anymore. However evolution is a tricky process and will often throw up some new way of overcoming such problems.

More Arachnid Stories:

Still On The Track: Attack of the Camel Spider

Still On The Track: The Fearsome Frog-Eating Spider of Epping Forest

Cryptomundo: Flashback: Camel Spiders and Other Giant Spiders. Check out the giant spider in Louisiana!

Further Reading

Invertebrata Enigmatica: Giant Spiders, Dangerous Insects, and Other Strange Invertebrates in Classic Science Fiction and Fantasy - Chad Arment (Editor) (US Amazon, UK Amazon)

Extraordinary Animals Revisited - Karl P. Shuker (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

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Unidentified Submerged Objects: The Golfo Nuevo Incidents

I admit, until recently my only knowledge of USOs came from reports from South America (specifically Brazil and Argentina) and so it seems appropriate for the second entry in this series to focus on one of the most famous series of incidents from that part of the world.


View Larger Map

Golfo Nuevo is a body of water formed by the Península Valdés and Punta Ninfas in the province of Chubut in the Argentine Patagonia. It is located 650 miles (1,046 km) southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Puerto Madryn is its major seaport - Wikipedia

When it comes to USO activity, the Golfo Nuevo has previous, so to speak. Even before the more famous incidents in 1958-60, it was a place weirdly frequented by submarine activity.

New information has now come to light regarding U-boat activities around Golfo Nuevo. On 7 March 1942 the CO, Third Argentine Destroyer Division advised his superior, CO Destroyer Squadron of a sighting:

"...Today 1730 hrs when the Division was heading to enter Golfo Nuevo, destroyer San Juan signalled: 'After seeing wake and ripples, hydrophones station reported a submerged vessel one to two kilometres off port bow, position 42°55' 64°01'...."

On 25 March 1942 in his report to Navy Minister Fincati, Admiral Sueyro stated: "This is not the first time that such reports have been received by me, all from the same area, Golfo Nuevo, but at different times since last year."

There was little, if any, known German hostile U-boat activities off the Argentine coast, yet here as early as 1941 submarines were being sighted visually at the entrance to Golfo Nuevo.

In the SA newspaper "Der Stürmer" of 17 June 1938, thus before the outbreak of war, Dönitz had stated: "The German Navy is proud. It has built for the Führer and Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler an absolutely impregnable retreat where he will be safe from all enemies." - UFO Casebook Forum Post

Now, of course, the events of WWII were confusing and often didn't make much sense so it's hardly surprising submarines were seen in odd places. But how about a German Type XXI U-Boat being seen here, 15 years after WWII had ended? Now that is certainly interesting.

On the 21st of May 1958 the cruisers "General Belgrano" (a ship very familiar to us Brits), "9 de Julio" and "La Argentina" were performing exercises in the Golfo Nuevo along with the destroyers "Buenos Aires", "Entre Rios", "Misiones" and "Santa Cruz" plus support vessels and naval aircraft.

Sanaviron

Around about 10.00pm the tugboat "Sanaviron" began sonar testing. Thirty five minutes later the submarine detection sonar operator reported a contact even though no submarines were operating in the fleet maneuvers. The commanding officer of the fleet, Benjamín Moritán Colman, ordered the destroyers on to anti submarine duties. Depth charges were dropped in the shallow waters of the gulf, and during the operations a periscope was sighted from various points on the "Buenos Aires" and an oil spill seen. A schnorchel was also reported. Operations continued for two weeks with irregular sonar contact. On the 10th of June 1958 it was announced the submarine had left the gulf at a fast speed. Based on sonar reports the sub had consistently been travelling between 8 and 10 knots during it's two week enclosure. (sources Maritime History and Archaeology and UFO Casebook)

A two week search, a strange unidentified submarine and one of the largest anti-submarine operations since WWII. You would have thought that would have been weird enough.

Yet in October 1959 another unidentified submarine was detected in the Golfo Nuevo. After 5 days, and following an intensive search by the Argentinians, it again left without signs of significant damage. What was so exciting about the Golfo Nuevo? Were the Soviets spying on the naval activities at Puerto Madryn? Perhaps it was NATO doing the same?

Three months later the submarine returned... and one of strangest and woefully under reported military operations of the Cold War era began. Given the complications I'll quote from source, which is this rather excellent forum post (I know it's hardly academic, but this is a USO story we are talking about here!).

At 0930 on 31 January 1960 the torpedo boat "Cervantes" obtained a sonar contact of an object moving slowly at 90 feet, identified as a submerged submarine. A depth charge attack was carried out.

1 February 1960: In an official communiqu� published in the newspaper "La Naci�n", the Chief of the Naval Staff Operations Centre, capit�n de corbeta Juan Vasallo stated: "Yesterday the task force of cadets of the Naval Military School engaged on the annual training cruise on teh Atlantic coast, composed of the torpedo boat "Cervantes" and the patrol boats "King" and "Murature", obtained a sonar contact inside the entrance to Golfo Nuevo identified as a probable submarine. An air-sea task force has been assembled to investigate."

3 February 1960: Secretary of the Navy contraalmirante Clement announced that more warships had been attached to the task force. He considered it probable that there were two submarines "because these boats generally operate in pairs."

4 February 1960: After hours and hours of depth-charging by seaplanes it was thought that the submarine must have been destroyed. Escape was impossible, for a minefield had been laid across the ten-mile wide entrance to the gulf, and a large foce of anti-submarine vessels stationed on listening watch seaward of the minefield. The search force was finding it impossible to obtain a bearing on the boat by radar, sonar or hydrophones. Although the submarine could be heard, its geographical location was impossible to establish. This made it extremely difficult to attack the boat.

For days and days the aimless attacks went on. At night hundreds of flares lit the night sky while ships' searchlights swept the waters. Up and down, up and down they steamed, depth-charging then listening, then depth-charging again. It had become a wonderful festival for all the many holidaymakers who visit Puerto Madryn at this season of the year.

10 February 1960: The submarine was confirmed as being audible within the gulf. Ten warships waited in a semi-circle beyond the minefield while maritime aircraft circled overhead. The corvette "La Rep�blica" had arrived with replacements including many experienced sonar operators while Argentine marines occupied Cracker to prevent a possible landing. On this day at 2245 hrs a second submarine surfaced in international waters. This was considered to be a lure. The newspaper "La Naci�n" quoted military sources next day as saying that the surfaced submarine "has a profile very similar to the German Type XXI wartime U-boat. It is said that the design has been copied and can make 16 knots submerged." This boat had "great manouevrability" and had made "audacious attempts to draw off the Argentine Fleet to allow the intruder to escape from the gulf."

11 February 1960: Argetnine President Frondizi ordered an all-out attack to destroy the intruder. He had thirteen warships and forty aircraft available.

13 February 1960: Modern depth-charges, flares, sonar buoys and other advanced anti-submarine weaponry arrived from the United States together with WWII anti-submarine veterans. The US technical team was led by Captain Ray Pitts, Naval Operations HQ reporting directly to Vicealmirante Raga, Chief of Argentine Naval Operations. The new depth charges were of terrific effect and could destroy a submarine down to 200 metres, which was deeper than anywhere in Golfo Nuevo.

On The Diplomatic Front: 13 February 1960: The Spanish newspaper "Las Provincias" published a telex from correspondent William Horsey in which he reported that the intruder submarine had been positively identified as a Type XXI German U-boat of WWII. In unconfirmed reports, oil which the boat had discharged was analyzed and found to be the kind made by satellite states of the USSR to the formula used by the Third Reich.

The Argentine Navy now issued a final ultimatum to the submarine to surface and surrender or be sunk. To avoid any possibility of an international incident, Argentina requested 26 nations including the US, USSR, Britain, France and West Germany to admit that the submarine was theirs. All answered in the negative.

The suspicion was that this must be a Soviet submarine. The Soviet naval attach� to Buenos Aires, rejcted the accusation in indignation while Vice-President Mikoyan stated "...the only thing they are going to kill in that gulf is a heap of fish." The formal denial of the Soviet Government was reinforced over the next few days when the Soviets made no attempt on the diplomatic or military fronts to assist the submarine to escape. If it had been sunk and identified as Soviet, the USSR would have been exposed to ridicule worldwide, while the USA would have made endless capital out of its part in the sinking.

14 February 1960: Two strange submarines arrived in international waters outside the gulf and began to manouevre near the Argentine Fleet. They were described as "gigantic" but the type "could not be ascertained with exactitude". Inside the gulf the depth-charging with the new, powerful explosives began, one every ten minutes all day.

15 February 1960: The naval forces reported that the intruder submarine "had the mysterious ability to avoid electronic detection." This meant that it did not return the radar beam, and its bearing could not be determined from hydrophone or sonar equipment. Late this day the Argentine Minister of Defence, Justo Vilar, announced that that submarine "must have escaped". This meant he believed it had sailed through the minefield and got between the vessels on listening watch.

17 February 1960: The patrol boats "King" and "Murature" maintained contact with the submarine briefly.

18 February 1960: Official Argentine sources reported that they were" sure that the submarine had escaped".

20 February 1960: Contact was re-established with the intruder inside the gulf, and the biggest navy-air concentration since the Second World War gathered for the "final onslaught".

21 February 1960: In the early hours the intruder surfaced. It was seen to be a Type XXI German U-boat of WW2 design. Homing torpedoes were fired but "incomprehensibly all missed". More salvoes were fired at the submarine, but these also missed. Finally the newest sonar-type torpedoes were launched. These also all missed.

22 February 1960: The intruder submarine surfaced briefly to discharge oil.

23 February 1960: The Argentine Navy reported "carefully combing the waters of Golfo Nuevo on 21 and 22 February without making any further contact with the intruder, which is believed to have escaped. It is felt however that it may return. Nevertheless the search is being stepped down...."

Lest you think these are the delusions of some crazy conspiracy theorist, here's the Time Magazine article that was released during the events.

Type XXI U-Boat (US U3008 in 1948)

There is a much more popular, and slightly more crazy, version of events out there which are repeated in exactly the same, word for word, way:

In 1960, the Argentinean Navy tracked two unidentified submerged objects in the Golfo Nuevo, 650 miles south of Buenos Aires. At first it was thought that they were US submarines, but then they appeared to break apart and fly out of the water. Paul Stonehill, co-author with Philip Mantle of UFO-USSR, explained how the objects simply emerged from the water and vanished. Paul went on to tell us that the Soviet leader at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, was so impressed with the report that he ordered his representative in Buenos Aires to find out more about the event

I think this version of events does NOT go with known length of time the USOs were detected for. It seems to have gained popularity in this rather lazily researched USO documentary (more lazy than my research and that's saying something!)

So who's submarines were they? Was one of the superpowers using their old XXI's to spy on smaller countries (Puerto Madryn was a major anti submarine base) with impugnity? Certainly everyone denounced such suggestions, the US even sending more depth charges to Argentina!, but in the Cold War such duplicity was not uncommon. However I suspect even the Soviets wouldn't have denied involvement given the almost certain destruction of the submarine (I'll get to that in a minute!). Could it be our friends in the Fourth Reich? Perhaps the Nazi's last refuge was not Antarctica but some secret base in south America, hence the interest in south America. "Former" Nazis have strong connections to south America and specifically Argentina (thanks to things like the ODESSA programme) so it's not completely insane. Or perhaps it's some unknown player, a country who got hold of an XXI and was testing it out? Unlikely but possible. Ivan T. Sanderson believed it indicates an advanced civilisation lives beneath the waves, one that is responsible for all UFO and USO unexplained encounters.

Based on the information it seems clear to me that this was SOMETHING and not just sonar echoes. The problem is that if we say it was submarine, how on Earth did it survive in the Golfo Nuevo for weeks under such a constant bombardment (possibly the biggest anti submarine campaign post WWII). Some, such as my favoured source, suggest that the submarines were of a much higher technical capability with force fields, invisibility and/or the ability to jump into another dimension. This would certainly jive with most of the Antarctic base stories for the Nazis for instance. BUT it's a bit too out there for my liking. The Time magazine article suggests that hammering noises were heard (which would indicate repairs being carried out) and oil slicks were seen. Perhaps it wasn't invulnerable but just able and lucky. Based on the information available it is impossible to draw a conclusion as to the origin of these mysterious submarines but that's half the charm isn't it?

Whatever the case, I find this story truly compelling. It also highlights USOs are NOT (just) UFOs. No need for aliens or exciting time travel to explain away some USOs, although I suppose that also applies to most UFO reports. But hey still... no aliens required.

Further Reading

Invisible Residents - Ivan T. Sanderson (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists - Martin A. Lee (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

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The Giant Peruvian Snake

In case you've been missing it, the CFZ bloggo has been offering a blow by blow account of a giant snake "discovery" in Peru.

It all started with a story in a newspaper. CFZ picked it up and followed through on it with a rigorous investigation of their own. Turns out it was just a sandbar (quelle surprise). Well probably.

I might be a sympathetic sceptic, but even the more hardcore sceptics should give credit where credits due. CFZ do not just accept any old story, they properly look into the merits of each case. That's why I subscribed to Animals and Men last year and will do so again when I have the money. In the meantime I say check out the Peruvian snake saga, and then explore the rest of the fab articles over there. Anyone with a passing interest in animals, or cryptozoology, will find something of interest on there.

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Titanoboa: The Biggest Snake To Ever Slither The Earth

Titanoboa has been described from newly discovered fossil records in north-east Colombia. It would have lived 58-60 million years ago, was probably 13m (42ft) long and was so wide it could reach up to a persons hips!

Perhaps tales of giant snakes have a basis in reality after all!!

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Mystery Airships: The Steampunk UFOs Part Three

Mystery Airships: The Steampunk UFOs Part One

Mystery Airships: The Steampunk UFOs Part Two

Throughout the early 20th century reports came in of mysterious airships from places as far afield as California, London and New Zealand. What could they have been?

Charles Dellschau and the Sonora Aero Club

Behind every great unexplained event is a conspiracy theory waiting to see the light of day and the phantom airships are no different.

Dellschau was born in Prussia in 1830 but emigrated to America in his early adulthood. At that time (and for many years after) Germany was at the forefront of aeronautical innovation and perhaps that is what influenced Dellschau's later works.

He wasn't famous during his lifetime, in fact he was considered a recluse and his grouchy nature made him few friends. But after his death several personal journals and artworks were discovered which perhaps might shed some light on the phantom airships.

Dellschau began this work in 1899 and his works tell a story. If his work (written in badly spelt English, German and his very own code language) is to be believed some 50 years previously he had been a member of a secretive organisation named the Sonora Aero Club which was established by eccentric men dedicated to furthering the cause of powered flight in California.It was supposedly part of a larger secret society called NYMZA. Some see these claims as a possible explanation for at least some of the reports of mystery airships over the USA. Many encounters with the airship crews record the crews stating various ambitions to fly on to another destination as part of some great adventure. 

But it must be remembered that Dellschau was an artist, his artistic airships not in anyway resembling those reported (or those that could ever fly!) and his ramblings could either simply be part of his art or part of some sort of mental health issue. There's a bit more on this here.

Contemporary Zany Inventors?

The rather interesting thing about the sightings is that they occurred at a time when it is very possible there were people inventing such ships such as:



Henri Giffard flew a steamed powered airship 27km in 1852 near Paris.

Solomon Andrews flew Aereon in 1863 over New Jersey which consisted of three 80-foot cigar-shaped balloons, with a rudder and gondola.

Henri Dupuy de Lôme flew an airship in the last days of the Franco-Prussian War

By the late 1890s rigid, metal hulled airships were beginning to be flown thanks to inventors such as David Schwarz.

And there were rumours of other inventors at work, some stories are on this site including this one, which I particularly like:

In 1848 gold fever seized America. On January 24 a workman discovered the precious metal in Sutter's millrace in California's Sacramento Valley. Within weeks the entire Pacific coast knew about it and a few months later "gold" was on the tongue of every easterner who ever dreamed of easy fortune.
Getting to those goldfields, however, was a problem, for the inland parts of the young nation were largely unsettled. A unique solution -- air travel -- came from "R. Porter & Company," a firm which listed its address as Room 40 of the Sun Building in New York City. In the latter part of 1848 the company distributed an advertising flyer in the eastern United States which promised more than it ever delivered.
Touting "THE BEST ROUTE TO THE CALIFORNIA GOLD!" the flyer read in part that the company was "making active progress in the construction of an 'Aerial Transport' for the express purpose of carrying passengers between New York and California.
"It is expected to put this machine in operation about the first of April, 1849, and the transport is expected to make a trip to the gold region and back in seven days..."
On the flyer the "aerial locomotive" is illustrated -- a huge cigar-shaped device, identified as a "gasbag," with a tail. Under it, attached with "sturdy material arrows can't puncture," is a similarly-shaped car with windows in its midsection.
"Snug gondola with benches for 50 or more passengers," the caption reads. From the top of the gondola stretches a long pipe which is identified as "a steam engine for controlled propulsion through sunny skies at 60 miles the hour."
Except for this pipe, entrepreneur Porter's vessel is almost a dead ringer for the type of "UFO" widely reported in the late 1800's and early 1900's which came to be called "the airship," although obviously there had to be more than one of them and they did not all look alike. But in the advertisement of an obscure company lie the first hints of a bizarre mystery which is staggering in its implications.

So yes those ships described by the witnesses would be futuristic and advanced but not completely impossible. For all we know they were simply the product of over enthusiastic inventors. But why would they not have reported such marvels? Well my other half is always making and creating new things, a jukebox from scratch was my favourite, and he does it simply for the joy of doing so. Soon after he's made them he tears them down to move on to his next project. Could these guys have not been like that? Sure it's far fetched but anything is possible!

Aliens?

 On April 19 the Dallas Morning News reported that the airship had crashed into a windmill in Aurora and exploded. The body of the pilot was recovered, and was identified as a native of the planet Mars. Despite this, the remains were buried in the local Masonic cemetery. The Amazing Airships of 1896

Of course with these reports of crafts in the sky so greatly resemble later UFO and extraterrestrial encounters it is not difficult to go one step further and claim these sightings are also extraterrestrial in origin. Sure some of the lights in the sky type sightings might well be alien space craft but more likely are simply natural phenomenon. 

The more detailed encounters suggest that these airships could not be alien in origin. The technology described was not that advanced (certainly not advanced enough for intergalactic travel) and most reported humans in the vehicles, or at least heard human voices and laughter from them. I find it highly unreasonable to connect the airship flaps with aliens, as the evidence is very much against that idea and more in favour of a more earthly origin. 

A Hoax?

History shows us that hoaxes are more likely an explanation for the sightings than any other possible cause. If you think news reporting is unreliable and biased now, then you have obviously not seen anything about news reporting in Victorian times. Given to exaggeration, and sometimes downright lying, just to sell papers many reporters would happily seize upon a light in the sky story and turn it into several pieces on strange craft generating more reports by people who think they've seen something which ends up generating more stories and so on. 

If you look at the flaps, starting off slowly and become more feverish and outlandish as time passes before petering out, the chronology bears out this sort of scenario perfectly. I'm not suggesting anyone person intentionally set out to hoax others, but I am suggesting a combination of factors may have exaggerated the stories from mere misunderstandings into crazy airship stories. 

One article even goes on to cite the possibility, that newspapers at the time suggested, that some of these hoaxes may even have been an elaborate advertising scam!

Foreign Powers?

The scareships show us that paranoia about the abilities of an adversary can lead to exaggerated reports. There is no way airships could have reached parts of the country they were reported in from anywhere else in Europe. The very idea is absurd. Perhaps the Sheerness sighting reported last time was a German airship but in Wales? Or in the north? Absolutely not. 

Perhaps there were airships in the sky during some of those encounters, but sadly the general media situation at the time of the sightings and people's enthusiasm for the subject leave me unable to believe the majority of reports which can be put down to hoaxes, exaggeration and mistaken identity. 

Further Reading

Mystery Airships In The Sky - Steven A. Arts (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery - Michael Busby (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

The Great Airship Mystery - Daniel Cohen (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

Mystery Airships: The Steampunk UFOs Part One

On November the 21st 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes ascended to the skies in the worlds first known manned flight using a hot air balloon. Seeing that anniversary the other day sort of reminded me about those anomalous flying machines of the late 19th Century; the "Mystery Airships"

New Hampshire in 1870

Things began to go bump in the sky in the 1870s. Paris was occupied by the Prussians and Alexander Graham Bell was tinkering with a prototype which would one day drive us all insane and in America strange reports were appearing of "airships" in the sky. Over the next few decades the sightings continued, mostly in sporadic bursts, right up until the foo fighters took their place as the UFOs of the 1940s.

Although the major "flap" didn't occur until 1896 there were significant unidentified flying object sightings before that, with the below being the best known, and best documented, one.

On March the 26th 1880, in a small dot on the map named Galisteo Junction, New Mexico, a worker on the railroad and couple of friends were walking after a hard days work when they heard voices in the sky. The voices were in an unknown language, punctuated with laughter, and when they raised their eyes to the sky they were greeted with the sight of a gigantic craft floating above them occupied by a dozen or so men. They would later describe the craft as "fish shaped" because of it's cigar body shape with a tail, all driven by some sort of propeller.

The occupants threw out some objects and pieces of paper which were carefully examined by the men. The writing on the paper made them think of Oriental script and a cup was later described as being unlike any they'd seen before.

Later a strange visitor to town bought the objects and they were never seen again but, according to this site and the April 5th 1880 Santa Fe Weekly New Mexican, there is a postscript:

A party of tourists which included a wealthy young Chinaman stopped in the vicinity and found the stranger engaged in archaeological work. The young man grew excited on seeing the articles dropped from the airship, because among among them was a note in his fiancee's hand, and he explained that CHINESE EXPERIMENTS IN FLYING HAD AT LAST SUCCEEDED, meaning, the airship which crossed the skies of Galisteo Junction was THE FIRST FLIGHT OF a CHINA-TO-AMERICA airline.

China. To America. By Airship. In 1880. Hell, it's one heck of an idea!

But the real excitement started in 1896. Sightings began in California and over the next few months moved gradually eastwards.

In Sacramento in November 1896 some men "Not Addicted to Prevarication", as one newspaper put it, reported seeing a light moving across the sky and heard voices (in a remarkably similar manner to the New Mexico sighting that happened nearly two decades before).

"The most detailed report of the evening came from one R.L. Lowery, a former street railway employee who said he heard a voice from above call, "Throw her up higher; she'll hit the steeple." When he looked up he saw two men seated on a bicycle-like frame, peddling. Above them was a "cigar-shaped body of some length." Lowery said that the thing also had "wheels at the side like the side wheels on Fulton's old steam boat." The Mystery Airship Of 1896

A few days later even greater numbers of people observed the phenomenon in Sacramento and also in San Francisco. After that the sightings, and the claims about them, became increasingly weird and worryingly common. Sightings were reported all along the west coast from Canada down to California and people claimed the airships to be the works of crazy inventors or military machines destined for war against the Spanish (read any right wing blog and insert the word Spanish for Muslim and you'll understand America's feelings towards our European cousins in the late 19th Century). The feverpitch gradually dissipated and all was calm until... 

In February 1897 the airship(s) made another appearance, this time over Hastings, Nebraska and few days later 40 miles away in Invale. Soon they were again coming from all over with one farmer reporting:

"It is cigar shaped, about 200 feet long and 50 feet across at the widest point, gradually narrowing to a point at both ends,"

The Nebraska sightings grew so numerous many people began spending their evenings watching the skies, nearly one hundred years before Mulder and Scully! The sightings moved into other states near and far and that's when things got a little weird... 

The airship was first spotted in Kansas on March 26, and reports came in through April and early May. The most amazing account out of Kansas came from a farmer named Alexander Hamilton, in the little town of Le Roy. According to Hamilton, the airship had dropped down on his farm on the night of April 20. The pilots lassoed a heifer from Hamilton’s herd and carried it off into the air. Mr. Hamilton even produced a notarized statement from twelve prominent men of Le Roy, attesting to his honesty and truthfulness.

The small town of Aurora, Texas, had an even more dramatic incident. On April 19 the Dallas Morning News reported that the airship had crashed into a windmill in Aurora and exploded. The body of the pilot was recovered, and was identified as a native of the planet Mars. Despite this, the remains were buried in the local Masonic cemetery.

Chicago awaited the airship with great anticipation, and was not disappointed. The mysterious lights reached Illinois at the beginning of April, and lasted through the first half of the month. After a handful of reports during the first week of April, a spectacular series of airship sightings swept Illinois and Indiana during the week of April 9-16, with 110 reports over the course of seven nights. It was spotted all over Illinois, frequently in different parts of the state on the same night.

In nearby Wisconsin, a farmer found a letter, apparently from the pilots of the airship, describing its construction in Tennessee. Other letters turned up in Michigan and Texas, obviously practical jokes. The most celebrated “airship message” was found in Astoria, Illinois. It was addressed to Thomas Edison, and was seemingly a coded report to him from the pilot of the mystery airship. The great inventor called it a “pure fake.”

After Illinois and Indiana, the sightings began to taper off. They did not end at once; reports were still being published in June of 1897. But they were scattered and few in number. The great wave of airship mania had broken and receded. The Amazing Airship of 1896

I believe the below picture to be one taken in Chicago at the time of the ships appearance there, although even then it was widely assumed to be a fake.



Things didn't end there.... Mystery Airships: The Steampunk UFOs Part Two

Further Reading

Mystery Airships In The Sky - Steven A. Arts (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery - Michael Busby (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

The Great Airship Mystery - Daniel Cohen (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

A Little History Of Giants: Giants In America

I'm sick and tired of reading religious texts so to take a break from the next religious post about giants and to allow myself to get a post up today, here is a little information on the possible survival of giants into modern human history in America...

We all know of the megafauna that existed in ancient the Americas, and which met untimely ends at the hands of the first human colonisers; the Mammoths, the giant sloths, and perhaps the Terror Birds. But did these early pioneers also encounter giant "humans"? There's some evidence that they did...

"It cannot be denied that there have been giants in this country. I can affirm this as an eyewitness, for I have met men of monstrous stature here. I believe that there are many in Mexico who will remember, as I do, a giant Indian who appeared in a procession of the feast of Corpus Christi. He appeared dressed in yellow silk and a halberd at his shoulder and a helmet on his head. And he was all of three feet taller than the others." The History of the Indies of New Spain - Diego Durán

Diego Duran was one of the earliest European writers on the culture and history of the inhabitants of the New World. Not only does he offer some first hand evidence of giants but he also captures some of the ancient stories of giants passed down by the Aztecs from when they first moved into the area that became their homeland.

"they recorded in their painted books the type of land and kind of people they found here. These books show two types of people, one from the west of the snow-covered mountains toward Mexico, and the other on the east, where Puebla and Cholula are found. Those from the first region were Chichimecs and the people from Puebla and Cholula were 'The Giants,' the Quiname, which means 'men of great stature.'

"The few Chichimecs on the side of Mexico were brutal, savage men, and they were called Chichimecs because they were hunters. They lived among the peaks and in the harshest places of the mountain where they led a bestial existence. They had no human organization but hunted food like the beasts of the same mountain, and went stark naked without any covering on their private parts....

When the new nations came, these savage people showed no resistance or anger, but rather awe. They fled towards the hills, hiding themselves there.... The newly arrived people seeing, then, that the land was left unoccupied, chose at will the best places to live in.

"The other people who were found in Tlaxcala and Cholula and Huexotzinco are said to have been 'Giants.' These were enraged at the coming of the invaders and tried to defend their land. I do not have a very true account of this, and therefore will not attempt to tell the story that the natives told me even though it was long and worth hearing, of the battles that the Cholultecs fought with the Giants until they killed them or drove them from the country.

"These Giants lived no less bestially than the Chichimecs, as they had abominable customs and ate raw meat from the hunt. In certain places of that region enormous bones of the Giants have been found, which I myself have seen dug up at the foot of cliffs many times. These Giants flung themselves from precipices while fleeing from the Cholultecs and were killed. The Cholultecs had been extremely cruel to the Giants, harassing them, pursuing them from hill to hill, from valley to valley, until they were destroyed.

"Even if we detain the reader a little, I should like to tell the manner in which the people of Cholula and Tlaxcala annihilated that evil nation. This was done by treason and deceit. They pretended to want peace with the Giants, and after having assured them of their good will they invited them to a great banquet. An ambush was then prepared. Some men slyly robbed the guests of their shields, clubs, and swords. The Cholultecs then appeared and attacked. The Giants tried to defend themselves, and, as they could not find their weapons, it is said that they tore branches from the trees with the same ease as one cuts a turnip, and in this way defended themselves valiantly. But finally all were killed."

Not only did Diego see some giant bones, for several accounts report similar encounters:

"When I was in Mexico, in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred eighty six, they found one of those giants buried in one of our farms, which we call Jesus del Monte, of whom they brought a tooth to be seen, which (without augmenting) was as big as the fist of a man; and, according to this, all the rest was proportionable, which I saw and admired at his deformed greatness." History of the Indies, Joseph de Acosta

In 1520 on Magellans voyage he stopped off to get supplies in Patagonia, his chronicler writes of this encounter:

We had been two whole months in this harbor without sighting anyone when one day (quite without warning) we saw on the shore a huge giant, who was naked, and who danced, leaped and sang, all the while throwing sand and dust on his head. Our Captain ordered one of the crew to walk towards him, telling this man also to dance, leap and sing as a sign of friendship. This he did, and led the giant to a place by the shore where the Captain was waiting. And when the giant saw us, he marveled and was afraid, and pointed to the sky believing we came from heaven. He was so tall that even the largest of us came only to midway between his waist and his shoulder; yet withall he was well proportioned. He had a large face, painted round with red; his eyes were ringed with yellow and in the middle of his cheeks were painted two hearts. He had hardly any hair on his head, what little he had being painted white.

A tribe of supposed giants managed to survive in the 19th Century if some reports are to be believed. The Karankawa tribe lived on the south western Gulf coast of Texas. Their accepted history alone is fascinating (and somewhat tragic, as is the way with much of the later history of the native Americans) and a very well written article on them can be found here. Some reports have said they were extremely tall, usually between 6 and 7 foot high. Similar heights however are reported for many native tribes, and I suspect this may be where a lot of the reports stem from. We must remember that the European explorers and settlers were of a short stature. Even today being 6'0" is still considered tall, and I've been to many houses showing that even in Victorian times British folk were remarkably small. 

These white pygmies must have been shocked to encounter the strapping, well built and healthy (until they met the invaders anyway) natives and probably awestruck by their comparatively large size. They may well have appeared like giants to them. But what about those bones? 

I think I'll just quote from Wiki for this one:

Aside from mythology and folklore, remains of giants have been claimed to have been found in America. Giants are usually classified as human-like remains that are 7' 5" (2.26 meters) or more in height. The book Forbidden Land by Robert Lyman (1971) recounts the following alleged finds:

* A decayed human skeleton claimed by eyewitnesses to measure around 3.28 metres (10 feet 9 inches tall), was unearthed by labourers while ploughing a vineyard in November 1856 in Wheeling, West Virginia.

* A human skeleton measuring 3.6 metres (12 feet) tall was unearthed at Lompock Rancho, California, in 1833 by soldiers digging in a pit for a powder magazine. The specimen had a double row of teeth and was surrounded by numerous stone axes, carved shells and porphyry blocks with abstruse symbols associated with it.

* Several mummified remains of humans with reddish hair claimed to range from 2-2.5 metres (6.5 feet to over 8 feet) tall were dug up at Lovelock Cave, (70 miles) north-east of Reno, Nevada, by a guano mining operation. These bones supposedly substantiated claims for legends by the local Paiute Indians regarding giants which they called Si-Te-Cah. However, there appear to be no verified Paiute legends about giants or that call the Si-Te-Cah giants (Fossil Legends of the First Americans (Princeton University Press 2005) — ISBN 0-691-11345-9). Fortunately one of the giant Lovelock skulls is still preserved today. It measures almost 30cm (1 foot) tall and resides along with other various Lovelock artefacts in the Humboldt Museum in Winnemucca, Nevada. Some of these artifacts can also be found in the Nevada State Historical Society's museum at Reno. Adrienne Mayor states that these skeletons are normal sized. (Fossil Legends of the First Americans (Princeton University Press 2005) — ISBN 0-691-11345-9) She also points out that hair pigment does not stay stable after death, and that ancient very dark hair can turn rusty red or orange due to a variety of conditions such as soil condition, temperature, etc.

* A 9' 11" (3.02 meters) skeleton was unearthed in 1928 by a farmer digging a pit to bury trash in Tensas Parish, Louisiana near Waterproof, Louisiana. In 1931 a 10' 2" (3.1 meters) skeleton was unearthed by a boy burying his dog in 1933 in nearby Madison Parish, Louisiana.

Aside from in Forbidden Land, we can find other unverified examples or legends about the remains of giants:

* A 9' 8" (2.95 meters) skeleton was excavated from a mound near Brewersville, Indiana in 1879 (Indianapolis News, November 10, 1975).

* In Clearwater Minnesota, the skeletons of seven giants were found in mounds. These had receding foreheads and complete double dentition

* A mound near Toledo, Ohio, held 20 skeletons, seated and facing east with jaws and teeth "twice as large as those of present day people", and beside each was a large bowl with "curiously wrought hieroglyphic figures." (Chicago Record, October 24, 1895; cited by Ron G. Dobbins, New England Antiquities Research Association Journal, v13, fall 1978).

So what happened to all these skeletons? Some believe in a conspiracy, which this site goes into in great depth and calls "The Smithsonian Cover Up"

This site claims to have some photographic evidence of large Incan giants. It also has a lot of further resources on the stories of giants.

But it still leaves me feeling all this is rather convenient... evidence found, evidence lost. That's the sort of thing that started the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But it's not good science.

I love the stories of giants in America because they remind us just what it must have been like to encounter strange people, unlike anyone met before by Europeans. It reminds us too of a time when cultures quite different to our own flourished. That strangeness and otherworldliness could not but influence some of these gigantic stories among those explorers. And that these stories were only backed up by more diminutive natives fabulous myths of giants in their past must only have increased the "truth" some found in these supposed encounters with giants.

Alas I think the giants of the Americas were more the result of over active imaginations, embellishments and fantasy.

Further Reading



Forbidden land, 1614-1895 (His Strange events in the Black Forest) - Robert Ray Lyman. This book explores the tales of modern bones being found.