Three-Foot Rat Found In New York City Shoe Store
Wondering what creature will inherit the earth after the fall of man in 2012? Well, take a peek at our future masters. Someone tweeted this photo of a gigantic rat, supposedly caught inside a Foot Locker store in the Bronx. Similarly sized rats were spotted in Brooklyn last year (with some photographic evidence as well). Via Gothamist:
Krampus March In Austria
It’s nice to remember that people around the world celebrate Christmas in different ways. Check out last year’s edition of the annual Christmas parade (”Krampuslauf”) in Graz, Austria, filled with local color as Krampuses (German Santa Clauses) go on parade:
Giant Godzilla-Shaped Christmas Tree in Shopping Mall
John Farrier writes on Neatorama:
Allegedly, this is a picture of a Godzilla-shaped Christmas tree that appeared in the Aqua City Odaiba shopping mall.
Within minutes, it destroyed the mall.
So, in retrospect, it was a really bad idea …
Did Prehistoric Giant Squids Make Art From Bones?
It sounds completly crazy. But it’s what a group of paleontologists are claiming — the first sentient beings on Earth to create art may not have been humans, but monstrously large, tentacled sea creatures called “kraken” who lived 200 million years ago and possibly arranged bones in geometric, decorative patterns. io9 explains further:
For decades, paleontologists have puzzled over a fossil collection of nine Triassic icthyosaurs (Shonisaurus popularis) discovered in Nevada’s Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. Researchers initially thought that this strange grouping of 45-foot-long marine reptiles had either died en masse from a poisonous plankton bloom or had become stranded in shallow water.
But recent geological analysis of the fossil site indicates that the park was deep underwater when these shonisaurs swam the prehistoric seas. So why were their bones laid in such a bizarre pattern? A new theory suggests that a 100-foot-long cephalopod arranged these bones as a self-portrait after drowning the reptiles.…
Scientists Say Mythical Monster The Yeti Is Real, Lives In Siberia
The existence of a giant, apelike monster, alternately known as Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, et cetera, has long been scoffed at and dismissed as a hoax. However, an international team of scientists say the mythical beast is real and roaming the furthest reaches of Russia. Via TIME:
Scientists and yeti enthusiasts believe there may finally be solid evidence that the apelike creature roams the vast Siberian tundra.
A team of a dozen-plus experts from as far afield as Canada and Sweden have proclaimed themselves 95% certain of the mythical animal’s existence after a daylong conference in the town of Tashtagol in the Kemerovo region, some 2,000 miles east of Moscow. In recent years, locals there have reported sightings of the yeti, also known as the abominable snowman.
The Kemerovo government announced on Oct. 10 that a two-day expedition the previous weekend to the region’s Azassky cave and Karatag peak “collected irrefutable evidence”…
21-Foot Crocodile Caught In Philippines
Possibly the largest ever captured alive, the beast is believed to have eaten two people, weights a ton, and is estimated to be 50 years old. Apparently having never watched King Kong, villagers plan to make it the star attraction of a tourist-geared theme park. The Guardian reports:
Villagers and veteran hunters ensnared the saltwater crocodile over the weekend after a three-week hunt in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province, where terrified villagers have reported at least one deadly attack.
Elorde said he planned to make the captured crocodile “the biggest star” in an ecotourism park to be built to increase villagers’ and tourists’ awareness of the vital role the dreaded reptiles play in the ecosystem.
Cryptozoology Meeting In London
Can the search for monsters and mystery creatures please become a reputable branch of science? Scientific American has a report on a meeting of experts who take the matter very seriously. Maybe they can investigate my mother-in-law (*slide whistle*):
The meeting was chaired by Henry Gee. Henry explained how the discovery of Homo floresiensis led him to take seriously the idea that “perhaps stories of other human-like creatures might be founded on grains of truth” (Gee 2004).
Dr. Michael Woodley showed how species discovery curves for large marine animals generally seem to match the numbers of undiscovered species purported to exist on the basis of circumstantial accounts. In discussing several key ‘Cadborosaurus’ and long-necked seal accounts, Michael also explained how – since most cryptozoological claims are published in the ‘grey literature’ – they escape evaluation, even when this is deserved or even required.
If cryptozoology is imagined as the investigation of ‘target’ animals whose existence…
Unknown 55-Foot Creature Washes Ashore In China
55 feet long and smells terrible? Must be my mother-in-law. (rimshot) The Sun reports:
A giant 55 foot ’sea monster’ has been found washed up on a beach in China. The beast from the deep is so badly decayed it cannot be identified. But according to local reports from Guangdong, in the south-east of the country, it weighed at least 4.5 tons.
People have flocked to see the creature — despite the rotting corpse’s foul stench. It was found tangled in ropes and one theory is fisherman caught it but could not land it as it was so big.
Chupacabra Killed In Rural Mexico?
What is this thing? A monster? The strangest mutant dog ever? Be forewarned that the additional photos and video are not for the squeamish. Inexplicata writes:
Local residents encountered a strange creature, small and walking on all fours before standing on two legs. They described the creature as having thin arms, legs and torso, covered with very little hair. Unfortunately, the few witnesses to this event were gripped by fear, and threw themselves against the unknown entity, lopping off its head with a single blow and throwing its small carcass to the local dogs, which devoured it almost immediately. It should also be noted that Chiquimitío is a farming community, and it is customary for residents to carry machetes wherever they go.
Subsequently, the same people involved in the event took what remains, up to this moment, the only evidence of the case: one cell phone video with a duration of 1 minute and 11…
Yeti Hand Returned To Remote Mt. Everest Monastery
Jimmy Stewart, a monastery hidden in the snow capped mountains of Nepal, and the disappearance of an unexplainable, hideous clawed hand. BBC News reports:
A pilot from New Zealand is in Nepal to return a replica of what some believe is the hand of a yeti to a remote monastery in the Everest region. Mike Allsop will fly from Kathmandu to Pangboche Monastery, which sits at 13,123ft.
The originals were stolen from the monastery in the 1990s. They first came to light in the 1950s when an expedition to find the mythical yeti came upon the monastery. Peter Byrne, the leader of the 1950s expedition to find the abominable snowman, said that the hand did not match the skeleton of a human or a primate.
Mr Byrne managed to take one of the bones from the hand out of Nepal to his friend, the Hollywood actor James Stewart, who was on holiday at the…
Make Your Own Remote-Controlled CockroachBorg
Slightly modify the circuitry from a remote-controlled toy, attach to a household cockroach, and, voila! A living RoboRoach, whose movements can be controlled via electrical impulses. After watching the below video, this creature/machine will be scuttling through your nightmares for days.
Chupacabra Shot Dead In Kentucky?
Perhaps, although the truth may be more mundane. A man in Kentucky’s Nelson County shot and killed a bizarre, hairless animal after it emerged from the woods as “he feared what it was, since he did not recognize it.” Naturally, local residents are now letting forth with Chupacabra claims, WAVE 3 News reports:
Has a mythical creature made its way to Kentucky? Some people seem to think so, after a Nelson County man came across a creature with grayish, wrinkly skin and no fur.
Mark Cothren shot and killed an animal on Dec. 18 because he said he feared what it was, since he did not recognize it. He said the animal walked from the woods onto his front yard around 3 p.m. Cothren lives on Mount Carmel Church Road in Lebanon Junction.
“I was like: ‘every animal has hair, especially this
time of year!’ What puzzled me is how something like that could survive…
Prosthetic Tentacle Arm
Lost a limb, but dissatisfied with the normal prosthetic options? Recent University of Washington industrial design graduate Kaylene Kau built a functioning prosthetic tentacle. Powered by an internal motor with control buttons, it allows the disabled, or anyone fed up with being “too humanoid,” to live a more serpentine existence.
High Weirdness at Loch Ness: Frank Searle’s Lost Second Book
Mike Dash writes on the Charles Fort Institute:
From Searle’s point of view, renown also brought the useful perk of short-lived young female assistants — he called them “Girl Fridays” — willing to share his watching duties and his bed.
There were several of these girls, one an Australian, another a Brit. A third, a Belgian named Lieve Peten, reminisced: “There was no romantic involvement, not for him, not for me, but there was a physical involvement. It sounds harsh, perhaps, but that was the Seventies, people experimented. And there was no AIDS back then.”
It seems reasonable to assume that she, and perhaps some of the other assistants recruited from small ads placed (the Glasgow Herald noted) in “parts of the country where the unemployment was high,” were more attracted to the romance of monster hunting than they were to the short, baked bean munching, prosthetic-footed (he was wounded in the war) Frank…
We Are All Werewolves! Sitting Now Podcast With Dr. Bob Curran
Via: SittingNow. Listen to the full episode here.
Finally, the triad of classic beasties have been covered on Sitting Now! First we brought you Vampires, then we gave you Zombies, this week we present you with a show about Werewolves!
Our guest this week, Dr Bob Curran
When it comes to discussing these iconic monsters, there is no better speaker than our old pal Dr. Bob Curran. Dr. Bob recently released his latest exploration of the mythological world in his fantastic book Werewolves: A Field Guide to Shapeshifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts.
In this week’s episode we discuss: The historical origins of the Werewolf myth, the Werewolf in classical literature, The Green Man, what do these mythological beasts tell us about ourselves, American folklore, and much more.
Never one to miss out on a good monster hunt, famous musical monster hunter Daddytank returns with his infinite supply of silver bullets. This week’s full mooners:
Giant Monster Crab Found In England
The Daily Mail reports on something scary. This giant crab may kill us all:
With its enormous legs and lethal claws, this monster of the deep is already the biggest crab ever seen in Britain. But astonishingly, the arthropod — which measures a staggering 10ft from claw to claw — is still growing, and could live until it is 100.
Nicknamed ‘Crabzilla’ after the fictional giant monster, the Japanese Spider Crab has legs [that] can straddle a car. They will eventually measure a massive 15 ft. Crabzilla was caught by fishermen in the Pacific Ocean.
Out of the water, the crab looks limp and languid because it cannot support its heavy limbs.
But in its own habitat &mdash up to 2,500 ft down in the cold seas of the ocean — it is a lethal predator.However, it also has predators of its own — humans — as it is considered a delicacy in Japan.
‘Sex Puppeteers’ Force Sex Changes and Virgin Births in Bugs Via Genes
Christine Dell’Amore writes in National Geographic News:
Fast-spreading parasite species force sex changes on their victims, induce virgin births, and turn animals into “gross monsters” — among other horrors. Now a new study has decoded how the bacteria may be able to wreak their havoc: by shutting down immune systems.
The parasites, of the Wolbachia bacteria genus, cause a gene in wasps to stifle the insect’s protein-based “alarms” against the bacterial invaders, say researchers who mapped the genomes of three species of Nasonia wasp for the first time. As a result, the wasps’ antibacterial defenses are never deployed, allowing Wolbachia to begin their dirty work.
New Year’s: Enter The Namahage
We discussed Krampus two weeks ago. The New Year’s equivalent is Japan’s Namahage, another colorful folk tradition that’s all about scarring kids for life. From Wikipedia:
Namahage is a Japanese ritual which is observed…in northern Honshū, Japan.
On New Year’s Eve, a group of young men dressed up as fierce bogeymen, Namahage, visit each house in the village, shouting: “any misbehaving kids live here?” They then scare children, telling them not to be lazy or cry, though little children often do burst into tears.Then the parents will assure the Namahage that there is no bad child in their house, and give food or traditional alcoholic beverages to the demons.
Below, some kids get a visit from the Namahage:
