Giant Squid Caught On Camera -- Alive!

Up until now, the only giant squid we have seen are the dead ones, caught in fisherman's nets. Well, that has changed. A group of Japanese scientists have finally caught a live Giant Squid on camera! This marks the first time that a Giant Squid has been caught on film alive! The link has several photos of the squid that were taken of the coast of Japan in the North Pacific. A length of 25 feet is given for this particular squid. Although, it is known to grow much larger than that. The story also shows that a portion of one of the squid's tentacles broke off and they were able to raise it to the surface. The piece itself, is quite large. This is an amazing discovery and I am sure there are a number of researchers out there who may be discouraged that they were not the ones to snap the first pictures of Architeuthis (the Giant Squid). I tell those researchers; don't be discouraged. Just move on to the next milestone.... film of a living Giant Squid!

New Cryptozoology TV Show

Earlier today, I was browsing around one of my favorite Cryptozoology-related sites, American Monsters and noticed that they have put up a casting call for their new cable TV show. I don't know all of the details, as far as the channel or when it will debut, but I will post them as soon as I find out. So, if you love Cryptozoology, fit their criteria (I don't, unfortunately) and want to be on TV, check out the link and follow the instructions to apply. I am glad American Monsters was able to secure this TV deal. I know they are passionate about Cryptozoology and I very much look forward to seeing the show finally make air. Good luck guys!

Bigfoot Conference Article

I was looking around for a recap or some news from the Bigfoot conference this past weekend and ran across an article with a short summary on what was there. The article doesn't go into a lot of detail about the conference, just naming a few speakers and a few quotes from their presentations. I have yet to go one of these Bigfoot conferences and I am curious to know what went on at the PA conference, if anything. So, if you or someone you know went to the conference in PA this past weekend and want to share your experiences there, send me an email. I would like to hear from you and will post some of the stories on this blog.

2005 East Coast Bigfoot Conference

For those of you in the Pennsylvania area, remember the East Coast Bigfoot Conference is this weekend. Also, the Pennsylvania Sun has an article about Bigfoot sightings and Eric Altman who is the director of the PA Bigfoot Societ and a speaker at the convention this weekend. From reading the article, Eric seems like a grounded person, one who knows a fake when he sees it. This is definitely a good thing, since the subject of Cryptozoology, unfortunately, tends to attract a lot of hoaxers. I, for one, applaud the real researchers out there in the field, doing the dirty work to get to the bottom of the Bigfoot mystery. Stick with it guys!

Cryptozoological History

I was doing a little searching around the web today and ran across this page on cbc.ca's website. On the page there are a few Cryptozoology-related videos to watch, mainly dealing with Caddy, Ogopogo and Bigfoot. What really caught my eye however is the timeline at the top of the page. Clicking that, I noticed that some of the videos go back nearly 50 years. I found it quite interesting watching a video of a woman describing her sighting of Caddy from 50 years ago and how little these sightings have changed over the years. There have been sightings as recently as the 1990's and their descriptions aren't much different than the one from that video. Also, each video has a cool "Did You Know" section with them that gives you some history and info into each of the videos as well. All in all, some great info on that page and I recommend everyone check it out. Now, those were history lessons I enjoyed sitting through!

Possible Loch Ness Breakthrough

According to some scientists in the UK, a "flesh-like" sample has been taken from the bottom of Loch Ness in Scottland. There isn't a lot of details in the article, but apparantly the sample may prove that there are large creatures living in depths of the loch. As some of you may know, for a while now, some scientists have completely written off the possiblilty of large animals in Loch Ness because they believed the ecosystem in the loch could not support them. Basically, they believed there wasn't enough food. This discovery, if it proves to be from a large animal, could put that ecosystem theory to rest once and for all. The article also states that the sample is subjected to DNA tests in the UK and here in the US. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. I shouldn't get this hyped up, it could turn out to be nothing. That is true, we have had a story about a tissue sample before. That sample turned out to be from a normal, identifiable animal. That is not going to stop me from becoming excited about this discovery though. There is always that chance that this could turn out to be from a large unidentified animal. The bottom line is that the possiblity exists, and I am glad that some of the science community is finally taking this seriously enough to actually perform tests instead of just discrediting these discoveries right off the bat. You can be sure that I am going to be following this story very closely and will post the test results and any updates as soon as they are available. Thanks to Hal for sending me this story. You can visit his blog at http://weaverwerx.blogspot.com/ Stay Tuned!

Summer Recap.

Since it seems that news reports relating to Cryptozoology have somewhat died down as of late, I thought I would do a little recap of the some of the summer's bigger stories. First was the big story about the Manitoba video. I remember all of the hype and hoopla for that video and when it was finally shown.... what a letdown. A long-range, blurry video of a dark blob against some trees. I should have known better to get caught up in that hype. Although, that story and video did bring Bigfoot back into the news. Which leads to the next big Bigfoot sighting. The Bigfoot sightings in the Yukon (link is currently unavailable). These sightings were reported by more than a few people in the Yukon region of Canada. What really made this story stand out however, was the the supposeded Sasquatch hair sample that was found after one of the sightings. After several tests, the sample turned out to be just Bison Hair. Not to be outdone by Bigfoot however, there were quite a few lake monster sightings this summer. A lot of those were in Canada as well. There was the sighting on Lake Champlain. There was supposedley pictures and videos of this sighting, but I was never able to find them. I don't think they were ever released. Speaking of unreleased pictures, who can forget the sighting on Lake Massawippi. This was probably the high-point of sightings for me so far this year. Mainly due to the photo enhancement that I did of the photo of "Whippy". Who can forget that lizard-like face peering up out of the water. One also remembers that I spent many days trying to secure copies of the original photos for enhancing. This was to no avail unfortunately. Although after further scrutiny, the sighting and photos appeared to be a mis-identification and was, most likely, a fish. These are just a few of the sightings and reports this summer. As the news keeps coming in, you can be sure that I will post it. So, stay tuned!

New Deep Sea Camera

There is a new type of camera being used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . The camera, as reported here uses a dim, red light to view the deep sea creatures. This is different than the normal cameras in use today, those use bright lights that could possibly scare away or harm the creatures they are trying to study. The red light used by the camera is thought to be invisible to creatures of the deep sea. I guess, in theory, making the camera invisble as well. It seems that they have had some luck with this method already, as the camera was attacked by an previously unknown squid. A large one. This is exciting becuase this possibly could lead to photographic evidence of many deep sea creatures. Like the Giant Squid for example. Which has never been caught on film alive. Well, not in adult form. Who knows what discoveries this technology could lead to. Hopefully, there will be some exciting results from this. One can hope.