yeti-sasquatch_low, originally uploaded by Boju.

Dapper Cadaver is going to to be visited by the Believe It Tour on Friday, Sept 26th as part of their ongoing quest to teach and learn about the all mysterious of the universe, but mainly Bigfoot.

In honor of the ambassadors of Sasquatch, I’m using Monster Mondays to shine some light on the whole Bigfoot clan. Cause there’s lots of bigfoots, or bigfeet as their known to “science.”

Think you can tell a wookie from Harry and The Hendersons? Take this quiz and find out. I’ll send something weird to the first person who get all the bigfoots correctly identified.

1. This Bigfoot lives in Brittish Columbia. It is 12 feet tall with bizarre long arms that end in yellow paddles. Unlike most apes, it only has 4 toes on its feet.

2. Native to Australia, Aborigines see this creature as part lizard, part ant, but the Brittish colonists saw it as a gorilla-size ape man resembling an orangutan.

3. Another 4 toed bigfoot, this one is from Malaysia. It resembles a black orangutan but walks like a man. It’s name means Snaggle Toothed Ghost.

4. This beast is believed by locals to be an ape-demon who converted to Buddhism. For this reason, they keep evidence of its existence enshrined in their monasteries.

5. A native to Vietnam, this bigfoot is only 6 feet tall. He’s covered in fur except for his noticeably bald knees. He eats fruit, leaves, monkeys, and bats.

6. This bigfoot stands anywhere from 5 to 10 feet tall and is covered in red fur. He lives in an enchanted part of China where rates of albinism amongst animals runs unusually high.

7. This is the bigfoot of the Southeast United States, a swamp dweller who smells like rotten eggs.

8. This bigfoot was found dead in Pennsylvania. Witnesses say it had large eyes, human features and was mask-like in appearance; large muscles, flat buttocks, 13 inch-long feet, a 6 inch-long penis, and smelled like a damp dog

9. This bigfoot looks like a man covered in fur but is only 3 feet tall. He lives in Sumatra.

10. This is an allegedly extinct prehistoric ape that stood over 10 feet tall and ate tough plant matter. It’s jawbones and skull fragments have been found in China.

11. This Scottish bigfoot is tall and lanky, covered in gray fur, and said to have a ghost like presence.

12. This is a bigfoot from Ontario Canada that looks like a normal bigfoot, except its head and mane are blond.

13. This ape man from Pakistan and Afghanistan sometimes is seen wearing crude animal skin clothing. He also has a nasty habit of kidnapping local women and attempting to mate with them.

14. This Missouri bigfoot is notable for it’s pumpkin like head.

15. Apelike descendants of australopithecines, the first human species. This group diverged and remained a hairy, bipedal ape that some believe may still exist as bigfoot.

16. An Ohio bigfoot found more in the grasslands than the forests.

17. This Mongolian ape-man is speculated to be a relic tribe of Neanderthals. Stories of them have them somewhat successfully interbreeding with humans.

The QUIZ has been won. The Answers are below

1. Pitt Lake Giant

2. The Yowie

3. Orang Mawa

4. Yeti

5.Người Rừng

6. Yeren

7. Skunk Ape

8. Pennsylvania creature

9. Orang Pendek

10. Gigantopithecus

11. Grayman/ fear liath

12. old yellow top

13. Barmanu

14. Momo the Monster

15.Paranthropus / robust australopithecines

16. Grassman

17. Almas

From “Lo!” by Charles Fort, 1931. It is, I believe, a detailed account of 100 years of Chupacabra attacks in the UK and the Old World.

“In the month of May, 1810, something appeared at Ennerdale, near the border of England and Scotland, and killed sheep, not devouring them, sometimes seven or eight of them in a night, but biting into the jugular vein and sucking the blood. That’s the story. The only mammal that I know of that does something like this is the vampire bat. It has to be accepted that stories of the vampire bat are not myths. Something was ravaging near Ennerdale, and the losses by sheep farmers were so serious that the whole region
was aroused. It became a religious duty to hunt this marauder. Once, when hunters rode past a church, out rushed the whole congregation to join them, the vicar throwing off his surplice, on his way to a horse. Milking, cutting of hay, feeding of stock were neglected. For more details, see Chambers’ Journal, 81-470. Upon the 12th of September, someone saw a dog in a cornfield, and shot it. It is said that this dog was the marauder, and that with its death the killing of sheep stopped.

For about four months, in the year 1874, beginning upon January 8th, a killer was abroad, in Ireland. In Land and Water, March 7, 1874, a correspondent writes that he had heard of depredations by a wolf, in Ireland, where the last native wolf had been killed in the year 1712. According to him, a killer was running wild, in Cavan, slaying as many as 30 sheep in one night. There is another account, in Land and Water, March 28. Here, a correspondent writes that, in Cavan, sheep had been killed in a way that led to the belief that the marauder was not a dog. This correspondent knew of 42 instances, in three townlands, in which sheep had been similarly killed—throats cut and blood sucked, but no flesh eaten. The footprints were like a dog’s, but were long and narrow, and showed traces of strong claws. Then, in the issue of April 11th, of Land and Water, came the news that we have been expecting. The killer had been shot. It had been shot by Archdeacon Magenniss, at Lismoreville, and was only a large dog.

This announcement ends the subject, in Land and Water. Almost anybody, anyway in the past, before suspiciousness against conventions had the development that it has today, reading these accounts down to the final one, would say—”Why, of course! It’s the way these stories always end up. Nothing to them.” But it is just the way these stories always end up that has kept me busy. Because of our experience with pseudo-endings of mysteries, or the mysterious shearing and bobbing and clipping of mysteries, I went more into this story that was said to be no longer mysterious. The large dog that was shot by the Archdeacon was sacrificed not in vain, if its story shut up the minds of readers of Land and Water, and if it be desirable somewhere to shut. up minds upon this earth.

See the Clare Journal, issues up to April 27th—the shooting of the large dog, and no effect upon the depredations—another dog shot, and the relief of the farmers, who believed that this one was the killer—still another dog shot, and supposed to be the killer—the killing of sheep continuing. The depredations were so great as to be described as “terrible losses for poor people.” It is not definitely said that something was killing sheep vampirishly, but that “only a piece was bitten off, and no flesh sufficient for a dog ever eaten.”

The scene of the killings shifted.

Cavan Weekly News, April 17—that, near Limerick, more than 100 miles from Cavan, “a wolf or something like it” was killing sheep. The writer says that several persons, alleged to have been bitten by this animal, had been taken to the Ennis Insane Asylum, “laboring under strange symptoms of insanity.”

It seems that some of the killings were simultaneous near Cavan and near Limerick. At both places, it was not said that finally any animal, known to be the killer, was shot or identified. If these things that may not be dogs be, their disappearances are as mysterious as their appearances.

There was a marauding animal in England, toward the end of the year 1905. London Daily Mail, Nov. 1, 1905—”the sheep-slaying mystery of Badminton.” It is said that, in the neighborhood of Badminton, on the border between Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, sheep had been killed. Sergeant Carter, of the Gloucestershire Police, is quoted—”I have seen two of the carcasses, myself, and can say definitely that it is impossible for it to be the work of a dog. Dogs are not vampires, and do not suck the blood of a sheep, and leave the flesh almost untouched.”

And, going over the newspapers, just as we’re wondering what’s delaying it, here it is—

London Daily Mail, December 19—”Marauder shot near Hinton.” It was a large, black dog.

So then, if in London any interest had been aroused, this announcement stopped it.

We go to newspapers published nearer the scene of the sheep-slaughtering. Bristol Mercury, November 25—that the killer was a jackal, which had escaped from a menagerie in Gloucester. And

p. 646

that stopped mystification and inquiry, in the minds of readers of the Bristol Mercury.

Suspecting that there had been no such escape of a jackal, we go to Gloucester newspapers. In the Gloucester Journal, November 4, in a long account of the depredations, there is no mention of the escape of any animal in Gloucester, nor anywhere else. In following issues, nothing is said of the escape of a jackal, nor of any other animal. So many reports were sent to the editor of this newspaper that he doubted that only one slaughtering thing was abroad. “Some even go so far as to call up the traditions of the werewolf, and superstitious people are inclined to this theory.”

We learn that the large, black dog had been shot upon December 16th, but that in its region there had been no reported killing of sheep, from about November 25th. The look of data is of another scene-shifting. Near Gravesend, an unknown animal had, up to December 16th, killed about 30 sheep (London Daily Mail, December 19). “Small armies” of men went hunting, but the killing stopped, and the unknown animal remained unknown.

I go on with my yarns. I no more believe them than I believe that twice two are four.

If there is continuity, only fictitiously can anything be picked out of the nexus of all phenomena; or, if there is only oneness, we cannot, except arbitrarily, find any two units with which even to start the sequence that twice two are four. And, if there is also discontinuity, all things are so individualized that, except arbitrarily and fictitiously, nothing can be classed with, or added to, anything else.

London Daily Express, Oct. 14, 1925—the district of Edale, Derbyshire, terrorized, quite as, centuries ago, were regions by stories of werewolves. Something, “black in color and of enormous size,” was slaughtering sheep, at night, “leaving the carcasses strewn about, with legs, shoulders, and heads torn off; broken backs, and pieces of flesh ripped off.” Many hunting parties had gone out, but had been unable to track the animal. “People in many places are so frightened that they refuse to leave their homes after dark, and keep their children in the house.” If something had mysteriously appeared, it then quite as mysteriously disappeared.

There are stories of wanton killings, or of bodies that were not fed upon. London Daily Express, Aug. 12, 1919—something that, at Llanelly, Wales, was killing rabbits, for the sake of killing—entering hutches at night, never taking rabbits, killing them by breaking their backbones.

Early in the morning of March 3, 1906, the sentry at Windsor Castle saw something, and fired a shot at it (London Daily Mail, March 6). The man’s account of what he thought he saw was not published. It was said that he had shot at one of the ornamental, stone elephants, which had looked ghostly in moonlight. He was sentenced to three days’ confinement in barracks, for firing without proper cause. It would be interesting to know what he thought he saw, with such conviction that he fired and risked punishment—and whether it had anything to do with

Daily Mail, March 22—that about a dozen of the King’s sheep, in a field near Windsor Castle, had been bitten by something, presumably a dog, so severely that they had to be killed. In the Daily Mail, March 19, is an account of extraordinary killing of sheep, “by dogs,” near Guildford, about 17 miles from Windsor. 51 sheep were killed in one night.

A woman in a field—something grabbed her. At first the story was of a marauding panther that must have escaped from a menagerie. See the Field, Aug. 12, 19, 1893—an animal, supposed to be an escaped panther, that was preying upon human beings, in Russia. Look up records of werewolves, or supposed werewolves, and note instances of attacks almost exclusively upon women. For a more particularized account, by General R. G. Burton, who was in Russia, at the time, see the Field, Dec. 9, 1893. General Burton had no opportunity to visit the place “haunted by this mysterious animal,” but he tells the story, as he got it from Prince Sherincki, who was active in the hunt. An unknown beast was terrorizing a small district in the Orel Government, south of Moscow. The first attack was upon the evening of July 6th. Three days later, another woman was grabbed by an undescribed animal, which she beat off, until help arrived. That day, a boy, aged 10, was killed and devoured. July 11th—a woman killed, near Trosna. “At four o’clock, on the 14th, the beast severely wounded another woman and at
five o’clock, made another attack upon a peasant girl, but was beaten off by a companion, who pulled the animal off by the tail. These details are taken from the official accounts of the events.”

There was a panic, and the military authorities were appealed to. 3 officers and 40 men were sent from Moscow. They organized beats that were composed of from 500 to 1,000 peasants, but all hunts were unsuccessful. On the 24th of July, four women were attacked, and one of them was killed.

Something was outwitting 3 officers and 40 men, and armies of 1,000 peasants. War was declared. Prince Sherincki, with 10 officers and 130 men, arrived from St. Petersburg. We notice that in uncanny occurrences, when there is wide publicity, or intense excitement, phenomena stop—or are stopped. War was declared upon something, but it disappeared. “According to general descriptions, the animal was long, with a blunt muzzle, and round, standing-up ears, with a long, smooth, hanging tail.”

We know what to expect.

In the Field, Dec. 23, 1893, it is said that, after a study of sketches of the spoor of the animal, the naturalist Alferachi gave his opinion that the animal was a large dog. He so concluded because of the marks of protruding nails in the sketches.

But also it is said that plaster casts of the footprints showed no such marks. It is said that the nail marks had been added to the sketches, because of assertions by hunters that nail marks had been seen. Writing 30 years later (Chambers’ Journal, ser. 7, vol. 14, p. 308) General Burton tells of the animal as something that had never been identified.”

4 ft chupacabra 2, originally uploaded by Boju. This is a prop chupacabra I built for a freak show.

As part of the Dapper Cadaver Blog’s Monster Mondays project today I bring you another cryptid on the brink of being real - The Chupacabra, or in Spanish, El Chupacabra.

The Chupcabra has only been with us a little over 10 years, being named in Puerto Rico in 1995. It was described as a reptilian or alien looking bipedal creature with huge eyes, a round head, and spikes down it’s back. But the Puerto Rican Chupe bears little resemblance to the globe trotting hairless vampire dog thats been seen from Chile to Maine, and even Russia. Our Chupacabra haunts mostly Mexico and Texas, where its occasionally described as a hairless kangaroo-dog with spikes down it’s back, or just an ugly wrinkled hairless dog, with a huge muzzle, and saber-like fangs. They can travel by running or hopping. I wonder if the hopping may be due to injury or disease? From the Russian Chupacabra of 2006 ““It’s definitely a chupacabra! It has small front and large hind paws. To begin with the animal was walking on four legs, stood on its hind legs at the water, lifting up its long tail, and then started jumping like a kangaroo,” he says. In May Dmitry is determined to seek out the Russian chupacabra along with colleagues from the Ural Ufology Monitoring Station.”

In Texas multiple corpses have been recovered, centered around Cuero Texas, and most recently a video of a Chupe running down the street looking a lot like a mexican hairless. DNA evidence shows it to be closely related to, or a diseased, domestic dog or coyote.

If we drop the name Chupacabra from this tale, which is a completely different looking Puerto Rican monster that also sucks the blood of livestock, then the story gets older, and more interesting. The earliest “Chupacabra” attack I could find is in England nearly 200 years ago.

It goes something like this - “In the month of May, 1810, something appeared at Ennerdale, near the border of England and Scotland, and killed sheep, not devouring them, sometimes seven or eight of them in a night, but biting into the jugular vein and sucking the blood….Upon the 12th of September, someone saw a dog in a cornfield, and shot it. It is said that this dog was the marauder, and that with its death the killing of sheep stopped” -Charles Fort

Charles Fort then recounts of another Vampire Dog attack in Ireland in 1847, likening them to vampire bats, but finding it difficult to believe dogs can be vampires. As with the Chupacabra, the livestock was killed and drained of blood, but the body left in tact. When giant canine tracks were discovered near the kill sites, locals began shooting stray dogs on sight. During this wave of attacks several people were attacked an bitten by the vampire dogs, and suffered strange symptoms and madness. I highly recommend that anyone interested in this topic read the accounts of Charles Fort, as he goes through nearly 100 years of UK Chupacabra sightings.
For the next 200 years, vampire dog attacks have sporadically appeared. Like today’s Chupacabra attacks, the vampire dog attacks come in waves. They’re devastating at the time, often taking dozens of livestock and whipping people into a panic, but the soon halt. Whatever is going on, it’s clear we’re not dealing with a species that feeds on blood to survive generation after generation. Could we be dealing with a mutant? A disease? A madness? Malnutrition? The Supernatural? Could something be driving otherwise normal canines to become vampires?

Here’s one of the Texas Chupe specimens. It’s DNA showed it was most likely a coyote, but the muzzle is much thicker and the canine fangs are much longer. While mange may explain hair loss, something else would need to explain the changes to this “coyotes” teeth, snout, and behavior.

***************UPDATE*************UPDATE***************

I’ve been looking into canine diseases ever since I compared the US and English Chupa attacks. The English reports don’t mention hair loss as the Texas reports do, so we can disregard this as a symptom in the UK “Vampire dog” cases.

Although I could find no reports of rabies leading to blood drinking, the symptoms are interesting.

“The rabid animal may next enter a “furious” stage where it wanders about biting everything whether it moves or not.  It then develops paralysis of the throat, which makes swallowing difficult.”

It’s reasonable to assume that a starving animal which cannot swallow may try to sustain itself on a liquid diet, like a sick person drinking 7 Up and chicken soup, but for a carnivore that chicken soup would be blood. Again, this is speculation. We all know rabies can cause dementia in humans. However, by the mid 1800’s scientists including Louis Pasteur were working on vaccines for the disease, so if it was known, would so many cases of it go undiagnosed?

In the US a common symptom of Chupacabras is hair loss. If we assume a sore throat or difficulty swallowing to be the cause of the blood sucking, then I could only find one canine disease with both symptoms - Leishmania.

Leishmania is most commonly found in South and Central America. The Baker Institute Report notes that Leishmania has been reported in 21 states, and parts of Canada, but is rare. “Only if you live in southern Texas might the risk be significant” The territory of this disease fully coincides with chupacabra central. It causes hair loss, scabby or scaly skin, and swollen glands that can make swallowing difficult. It also can cause lameness which could explain why so many Chupas are described as hopping.

bigfoot_wideweb__470×379,0, originally uploaded by Boju.

Another special report from Dapper Cadaver’s Monster Monday Blog. A couple of hunters are claiming to have found the body of a bigfoot in the backwoods of Georgia, USA. Good, lets see the body. They’ll announce their findings this Friday in Palo Alto, CA, including DNA evidence, and I should hope, the body itself. So far all that’s been released is the above photo.

The claims and the evidence for Bigfoot.
1. The Photo- photos are not proof. Plain and simple. The above photo could be fake, or it could be real, and unless you can spot something absolute like a zipper, there’s not much we can say about it. Props and costumes are designed to look real, so there’s not reason it can’t be a fake. Also, real things can easily appear fake in photographs, like the below gorilla corpse

2. DNA - Seems fool proof, but even this is going to be a tricky sell. Quick DNA tests are used to determine what something is NOT, so they’re compared against known samples. Since bigfoot is an unknown sample, they’ll need to sequence a lot of DNA to show that this is a new species. For comparison, the Chupacabra specimens that were found showed a 98% match with Coyotes, leading experts to conclude they were coyotes. While 98% sounds like a lot, remember that Humans share 98% of the genome of a chimpanzee. even 2% is talking about hundreds of thousands of different genes. Enough to establish a species.

3. The body. This is the only thing that counts. We need to see bones. We need to see stomach contents. We need to know this is a beast physically different from other apes and humans, and by it’s stomach determine that it did in fact live in Georgia.

4. The finders - these guys are known bigfoot hunters, and known bigfoot haoxsters. One of them has a book coming out soon, so this could all be free publicity. It’s already been revealed that the “Scientist” in their you tube video was a fraud. Sure, they spend a lot of time looking for bigfoot, but they also have falsely claimed to have evidence before.

That’s pretty much everything to keep in mind. Many a bigfoot has been seen in the south east, and a friend of mine from Louisiana is the only person I know who swears to have seen one. His description of a 7 foot reddish brown ape with 4-5″ inch shaggy fur, a black face, and a beard quite accurately matches the beast found. And he saw his more than 20 years ago. I myself doubted the existence of bigfoot until a few years ago. Any creature that large, whether alive or extinct, should have left bones, and up until a few years ago, no ape or human skeleton taller than modern man had ever been found. Even neanderthals, who are larger than us in many ways, are roughly the same height as us. Then they found the jawbones of Gigantopithecus, a 7 - 10 ft tall ape that lived a hundred thousand years ago in China. Now bigfoot has a plausible descent. Unlike modern apes and humans that eat fruits, vegetables, meat, and tender leafs, Giganto evolved to eat tough plants, like bamboo, grass, mature leaves, and pine needles. It’s entirely likely this beast could survive in the southern swamps and northern woods. And as similar as it is in diet to the Panda, it could be similar too in it’s elusive behavior. The Panda was not proven to exist until the 1927.
Here’s a reconstruction of what Giganto was thought to look like

monster of troy, originally uploaded by Boju.

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the Montauk Monster identification last week. High resolution photos were finally released, clearly showing raccoon paws. Congratulations if you correctly IDed the beast as a raccoon.

The response was incredible, and several new and plausible theories were brought forward, so this week, the Dapper Cadaver Blog would like to invite you to help unravel one of the most ancient monster mysteries in history - The Monster of Troy. Depicted on a Greek vase circa 560-540 BC, a huge, ghastly skull is seen emerging from a cliff as the heroes shot it with arrows. Its unusual in that most monsters of the Greeks are shown alive, enacting myths. This may be an actual record of a monster skull, a fossil skull, be unearthed, and I believe in good enough detail to positively ID the beast.

Important to note is that the Monster of Troy is sometimes described as a land monster, and sometimes as a sea monster, so we can’t rule either out. It’s known that the Greeks unearthed many ice age mammal skeletons, but the open boney ring around the eye, called scleral ossicles are only found in birds, dinosaurs, and reptiles, and the open sinus in front of the eye suggests a dinosaur or bird.

Paleontologists have suggested some of the following possibilities
Prehistoric Giraffes

Giraffes do have forward facing teeth and thick jaw bones. However, they don’t have open sinuses or scleral ossicles, and they do have horns, which a monster artist would have included.

A Giant Ostrich

Aside from the scleral ossicles, which are so delicate they’re rarely preserved, I don’t see how anyone could mistake an ostrich for the monster of Troy.

A Prehistoric Whale

This is a pretty good sea monster. It’s huge, has forward facing teeth, and an open sinus. However, no scleral ossicles because no mammal has the bony eye ring.

That’s all I could find on expert opinions. Here are some beasts I dug up as candidates. Remember, the bony ring around the eyes, the scleral ossicles, are rarely preserved, but are believed to be present in all dinosaurs.

Diplodocus (dinosaur)

Carnivorous Dinosaur

Plesiosaur (marine reptile)

Mososaur (marine reptile)

Hippo Skull (mammal)

Entelodont skull (mammal)

Although difficult to see in the fossils, scientists have found evidence that both Elasmosaurus and Plateosaurus had scleral ossicals (also known as sclerotic plates) Here’s a Plateosaurus with forward facing teeth, a massive jaw, and sclerotic plates in the eye sockets

UPDATES

The black mass behind the skull was once thought to be the ocean, and is now thought to be a cliff or cave. The curious thing about the skull is that it is a skull, and not a mythological beast. The greeks found many ice age mammal bones, but they tended to interpret them as gods and monsters, and illustrate them as alive. A famous example being elephant skulls and cyclopses

A Giant Wolf Eel SKull?

ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE MONSTER OF TROY - ALIVe

KRONOSAUR

MORE PREHISTORIC WHALES

montauk monster 1, originally uploaded by Boju.

Special Weekend report from Dapper Cadaver’s Monster Mondays
Early last week a hairless beast, roughly 3 feet long washed up on Montauk beach near Long Island. It was named the Montauk Monster. Multiple witnesses at various times during the day reported it, and several people photographed it. However, before the body could be analyzed, one of the locals scooped it up declaring they were going to mount it on their wall. This leaving no body, an unsolved mystery, and an internet sensation.

Here’s what we know. The beast is about 3 feet long, nearly hairless, with what appears to be a beak lined with teeth in the lower jaw. It has a tail, no obvious injuries, and apparently finger like claws. Two photographs show the creature at different times of day, and in different positions. Locals reported the waves were rolling it. Here’s the second photo, although they may be of different beasts.

If this is the same beast, it’s important to note it has a nasal opening and ears, like a mammal. The change in color is baffling though.

Several theories have surfaced as to what the Montauk Monster is. I’ll examine them from an anatomical perspective one by one.

1. It’s a sea turtle that’s lost it’s shell
Evidence for: It’s about the size of a sea turtle, it has a beak.
Evidence against: It has hair, ears, and teeth. It’s elbows point back, while a reptiles elbows point up. Also, a turtles shell contains it’s spine and ribs. It can’t simply fall out, and if it was ripped out, its back would be a bloody shapeless mess.

My Opinion: It’s definitely not a sea turtle

2. It’s a raccoon
Evidence for: It’s about the size of a raccoon. The beak is probably exposed skull (not unusual) The lower jaw dentation match the dentation of a raccoon. Both the monster and raccoons have fingers.
Evidence against: Raccoon paws are actually more like human or monkey hands, these hands appear straight , square, and thumbless, and if you look closely, he’s flipping you off. Nearly all carnivores have similar lower jaws. No upper teeth. Most importantly his neck is thicker than his head, indicating he couldn’t look all the way to the side (90′). Raccoons have slim, flexible necks. For comparison, here’s a raccoon skull, and a raccoon taxidermy form showing what they look like beneath their fur.

My opinion: It’s not a raccoon

3. It’s a pit bull
Evidence for: size and shape, lower jaw. Thick neck.
Evidence against: No upper teeth, and most importantly, the hands of the Montauk Monster appear finger/claw-like, not paw/pad-like.
My opinion: It’s not a pit bull.

4. It’s a fake
Evidence for: cynicism, monsters are hot right now.
Evidence against: So many unconnected witnesses, it would have to be quite a conspiracy, with a great prop building budget, and for no obvious gain.
My opinon: It’s not a fake.

My theory- it’s a badger
Evidence for: Badgers have matching lower dentation, thick necks, and straight claw like fingers. They also do have tails, although they’re hard to see when the badger has fur. Also, most mammals have skin pigmentation that in some way correlates with their fur cover. The white haunches and paws of this creature match the white underbelly of a badger.
Evidence against: Badgers aren’t supposed to live in the North East.
Badger with fur, showing tail

Badger skull

Furless body form used for badger taxidermy, not the similarities to the monster

5. It’s an unknown creature.
Evidence for: There is no perfect match between the Montauk Monster and any known North Eastern carnivores.

6. NEW THEORY - It’s a nutria or other large water rodent.

Evidence for: it was found in the water. Similar paws.
Evidence against: Too large, wrong anatomy, completely mismatched skull

My Opinion: It’s not a nutria.

ebugogo2, originally uploaded by Boju.

Part of The Dapper Cadaver Blog’s Monster Mondays
When Captain Cook first landed on the Isle of Flores and brought the island to attention of the Western world, the natives told him they were not alone.

They said the island was also inhabited by little people calle Ebu Gogo or Ebu Gobo.

Later anthroplogists gathered more stories of the Ebu Gogo. Ebu means grandmother, and while Gogo or Gobo has no direct translation, it roughly means little grandmother who eats everything. Unlike the little people of Ireland and elsewhere, the Ebu Gogo had no magical powers. The natives considered them at best a pest, and a worst a dangerous boogie man that would eat children. They were only a few feet tall, with large arms and other monkey like traits, but not quite monkeys, and not quite people. They spoke their own language and wore clothing.

The natives tell their children not to wander in the woods or the Ebu Gogo will eat them.

The natives also say how the last Ebu Gogo died.

The Ebu Gogo had become an increasing nuisance in the village, stealing crops and livestock and damaging property. The villages wanted to make peace with them, so they invited them to a festival. A great bonfire was lit, and though the Ebu Gogo seemed to fear the fire, they all sat around it, human and little person alike. Then the foods were served. The Ebu Gogo did not know how to use plates or silverware, and through their utensils to the ground, which was a great insult to their hosts. They then ate everything, their share and the villagers share alike. One Ebu Gogo grabbed a human baby, and began eating that. At once the Ebu Gogo were chased out of town, where they holed up in a cave. The humans did not want to go in the cave, for they might be trapped, so they came up with a plan.

The next day they came to the mouth of the cave and told the Ebu Gogo that they wanted to make peace again, and they brough new clothes as a peace offering. With long bamboo poles they pushed in the clothing, which the Ebu Gogo began putting on. The clothes however were soaked in the natives lighter fluid type oil, and when all the Ebu Gogo were dressed the human burned the bamboo poles and lit all the Ebu Gogo on fire, burning them alive.

Up until 2 years ago the stories were considered to be about fantastical fairies, or monkeys, even though the natives insisted they were people.

Then a skull turned up in a cave belonging to a human less then 3 feet tall with a brain no bigger than a chimpanzee. Even dwarfs of similar stature only have brains about 15% smaller than a full size person, but this person had a brain nearly half our size. At first the evidence seemed to support it being a freak, a microcephalic individual, but then more bones turned up. In all 9 tiny individuals have been unearthed, stretching a time span of thousands of years. The youngest specimen dates back merely 12,000 years at a time when humans were thought to be the lone hominid on earth, and we had already begun agriculture.

The bones have been named Flores Man, and nicknamed the Hobbit.
They seem to be descendant from Homo Erectus.

10. Bigfoot

You make think Bigfoots are only a Northwoods beast, but Los Angeles has 3 distinct breeds of city ape. The first is your standard bigfoot, 6-11 ft tall shaggy gigantopithecus. The first sighting came in 1973 when a full sized Macho Sasquatcho chased down a pick up truck out in San Fernando Valley. The beast got close enough to the vehicle that they could smell its breath, which they later told reporters was “stinky.” In 1974 a bigfoot was actually seen in the city, between 45th st and 47th st on Quartz Hill.

Best places to go bigfoot hunting: Big Rock Canyon in San Fernando Valley, Quartz Hill in the San Gabriel Mountains, Azusa at the San Gabriel Mountain Foothills, Campgrounds in Santa Clarita, Elizabeth Lake, Lancaster.

9. Skunk Ape
Bigfoots little brother is most commonly sighted in Florida, but he’s also been seen in Palos Verdes and Redondo Beach, moving in and out of the suburbs via the sewers and knocking over trash cans for food. Skunk ape stands about 4 to 5 feet tall and reeks.
Best Place to go Skunk Ape hunting: Palos Verdes near the Dominator shipwreck. Redondo beach fields and suburbs at night.

8. The Beast of Billiwhack

The third kind of LA bigfoot might not be an ape at all. Seen once in Santa Paula and once in nearby Ojai, the Billiwhack beast has an shaggy, grey-black ape-like body, but an extended muzzle and goat like horns. It may be related to the Krampus or Wampa. Known to raid farms for chicken, corn, and dairy products.

Best places to go Billiwhack hunting: The Billiwhack Dairy in Aliso Canyon, Santa Paula, farms and forests in the San Rafael mountains and Ojai.

7. Starcle Men

Believed to be visiting aliens or inter-dimensional beings, Starcle men are mysterious in nature and seem to only appear to people in an altered state of consciousness.

Best place to see Starcle Men - Sewers and tunnels beneath LA. Signs of their pressence is marked by locals with angry eyed, star man graffiti.

5.Gray Aliens - Out in Lancaster it seams everyone has seen a UFO at one point or another, and locals get into heated debates as to whether Gray Aliens have a sinister plan for us, or are the good guys trying to save us from the evil Reptoids. The mankind united cult of the 1930’s and the scien-ology cult of today both base a lot of their doctrine on the earthly struggles of good and bad extra terrestrials.

Best place to spot UFO’s - Mt Baldy, Giant Rock in Landers, Lancaster.

4. Sea Serpents

Sailors off the California coast from Monterey to Mexico occasionally reported seeing giant, hundred foot long sea serpents with human faces staring up at them from beneath the surface of the water or skimming along the surface. And it turned out to be real. Oar Fish like the one pictured above can reach hundreds of feet in length, exhibit all the behaviors of the California sea serpent, and even have a flat face and forehead, that at night or through the distortion of the water could easily be seen as human.

Best Place to go Sea Serpent Hunting: East Cape of Baja California, San Diego.

3. The Thunderbird

Since native American times people have reported seeing gigantic birds of prey flying over the Los Angeles valley with wings so powerful they sound like thunder and bring storms.. Some people even claim to have found their enormous feathers. In the La Brea Tar Pits bones of vultures that would dwarf even the larges condor have been found, leading some to speculate the Thunderbird may be a surviving Ice Age Vulture.

Best Place to see the ThunderBird: The La Brea Tar Pits Museum

2. Demons of Elizabeth Lake

Elizabeth Lake, near Lancaster, was believed by the natives to be a gateway to Hell. From that lake witnesses have seen Dragons, Giant Bats, Giant Pythons,and Reptoids emerge. Livestock near that water have been mysteriously devoured. In the 1880’s a farmer saw a six legged bulldog with bat wings feeding on a steer, he opened fire on it with his colt .45 but the bullets bounced off. In the 1990’s a horned kangaroo with bat wings was seen bounding away from the lake in broad daylight. Several goat carcasses were found mysteriously killed that week.

Best Place to go Demon Hunting: Elizabeth Lake, Lancaster

1. Reptoids

Reptoids are, according to legends, a race of reptilian men that live in tunnels and underground cities throughout Los Angeles and Lancaster. Stories about them date back to Indian times, some Indians called the “Snake Brothers,” others lived in terror of them. All manner of conspiracies are linked back through them, from drug epidemics to UFO’s to genetic engineering to the Illuminati to government mind control. They may be evolved Dinosaurs, Aliens, Demons, or interdimensional beings. They can be invisible. They feed on fear and will climb onto people back to control them, menace them and eat their fear. The mouths of their subterranean tunnels are believed to be in Lancaster. For more info check out www.reptoids.com.

Best Places to Go Reptoid Hunting: Elizabeth Lake, Lancaster, Fort Moore Hill, the public library on Fifth st, the Southwest museum on museum dr, at the foot of Mt Washington.

As part of the the  Dapper Cadaver Blogs Monster Mondays, today I bring you the Hammerhead Salamander, a creature from 300 million years ago, modern Japan, outer space, Marsascala, or in Bahrija, depending on what you believe.

Fact, the Diplocaulus was not a salamander at all, as he pre-dates them by several million years, he’s an early tetrapod, a fish-amphibian with 4 legs that were the first vertebrates to climb onto the muddy shores of the primordial seas. His distinctive hammer head is believed to be an adaptation for hydroplaning through the water, or to make him hard to swallow, but it’s really not known.  Diplocaulus were about 2 to 4 feet in length.

The photo above was taken in 2004. Making this little guy a real survivor, if he’s real. Most people believe the photo is a hoax, although that itself is an amazing thing. Every weekend cryptologist wants to find or fake bigfoot  or the Loch Ness monster, but the Diplocaulus? Sure its weird looking, but no ones ever heard of them. You’ve got to admire the geekiness as well as the artsmanship of the faker, if this is a fake.

The most common explanation is that it was made from a model kit or by a Japanese sculptor, although a search for the artist yelded nothing, I did find one commercially available Diplo model in Japan.

Clearly not the same. The origins of this photo remain a mystery, and Diplo’s remain probably extinct.

Diplo’s have also turned up in space, as monsters in Pitch Black

But more often they’re chubby giant amphibians that are only menacing to small fish and have the weirdest head of any four legged animal ever. Their skull is just a bone boomerang with cartoon eye holes

Enjoy the many weird flavors of Diplo here 

unicorndeer_2, originally uploaded by Boju.

As part of the Dapper Cadaver Blog’s ongoing Monster Monday’s project, today I bring you the strangest perversion of a prevision of nature ever, The Mutant Unicorn. The Mutant Unicorn is proof that mankind as a species is little more than the 8 year old daughter of Dr. Frankenstein. We just want them to be real so bad, we’ll do anything to make it happen. The inbred little fellow above is a unicorn deer born in captivity in Italy. Park keepers are saying it’s just a genetic flaw, but I suspect the meddling hand of science.

The earliest mutant unicorn came in 1930, as a result of tinkering by the mad Dr. Dove of Maine. Hypothesizing that in a newborn horned animal the horn growing plate would not yet be fused to the skull, he cut into the head of a baby bull, removed both of it’s horns nodes and grafted them right between the eyes. The results are below

As a calf the bull discovered that it could charge any other bull and win, and for fear of having their brains impaled on a massive horn, all other bulls became submissive to it. Interestingly rather than becoming a, ahem, bully, the bulls dominance over the herd was so solid he rarely had to but heads or charge anyone. He did discover that his curved forhead horn was perfect for uprooting fences, and he loved to tear up peoples yards. Damn Unicorn Bull’s in the tomatoes again!

Our next Mutant Unicorn also came from the 30’s, behold the Unicorn Man of China.

Ripley wanted to place this man in his exhibit as the human unicorn, but he disappeared like an elusive unicorn not long after his photo was first taken. The mythical spiral horn was most likely a tumor.

During the cold war, atomic radiation could turn anything into lethal radioactive mutants, even unicorns!

When I was a kid in the eighties some “Naturalists” (read :Hippies) decided to create a Unicorn from a goat. They also “magically” removed the billy goats foul odor and grumpy disposition. IE, they did another Dr. Dove skull graft job, and removed his billy balls. The naturalists were named Morning Glory and Otter G’Zell (read: mega space hippies). They took they’re beautiful goaticorn on tour to county fairs and in the RIngling bros circus, which is where I saw it. While it was rather underwhelming to see a goat billed as a unicorn, one can’t deny that it only had one horn.

Otter G’Zell is currently headmaster at the Grey School of Wizardry, and wow, his story is so weird, just google it. Most recently his goaticorn appeared for a split second in a chewing gum commercial in which Snoop Doggy Dog goes to hell. I thought I was delirious until my wife confirmed my vision

The most recent mutant unicorn to pop up is this mutant horsicorn. Although this image is of unconfirmed validity. Some claim the horn is a painful growth, others claim it’s a work of art, and others claim it’s a unicorn. I believe someone may have finally had the brilliant notion of grafting a horn node onto a baby horses head. Now how can we graft on giant eagle wings to make a pegacorn?

As with Otter G’Zell’s goaticorn, the deericorn is attracting a devoted following of new age believers. Amazing what a little post-natal skin graft can do.