No

I saw the coolest picture of a supposed chupacabra on Google Images one time. I am not convinced of such things, but it was a really neat looking "animal."

Wow, this is timely:
http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92971?fp=1

Something similar was caught about a year or two ago and the thought was that it was a dog suffering from severe mange. But like someone else said, usually there is some "natural" explanation behind these mythical creatures (but it doesn't mean I don't hope for Bigfoot to exist).

I saw something even more convincing at the combined IBM-SAM convention last year -- the costume that Philip Morris rented to the good ol' boys who shot the film everyone thinks is real!



We had a possum show up in our back yard about a year ago. The dogs ran out of the house and cornered it. We got out there in time to keep them from eating the filthy thing! My wife said, "You'd better get a shovel and put that thing in the trash."

I said, "It's not dead. Let's go back into the house and come back again in about 15 minutes." Sure enough, it had miraculously recovered and was gone. It finally took residence in our garden shed, ate some weed killer or some such chemical and played possum permanently.

If you ever find a possum and he isn't obviously dead -- by that, I mean stiff and decomposing, do not pick him up with your bare hands. I have a friend who picked a possum up by the tail and brought it into the house for all of us to look at. We told him to get out quick. He didn't. The possum sprayed the room with all sorts of smelly stuff.

That's their other defense mechanism.

We have possums everywhere here. And I used to have a friendly pet baby possum who (I kid you not) used to come into my house and had his own bowl of food. He would even let me pat him, and sometimes we would watch TV and see him walking through the lounge room. It was pretty funny... Until it's mother saw me patting it. Then it was on for young and old, those things have some claws on them!

That is the only 'pleasant' possum I have met.

Our possums and their (o)possums are a bit different, I think the American variety is much less dangerous.

Sorry, but the big stuff that no one captures or shoots or traps but swears is real but evasive, is Urban Legend. OK once in a 6,000 it is something that exists but was misunderstood. It is a million times easier to fake such things as existing than to prove they do not exist.

I've spotted the legendary critter know as "The Abominable Showman" on occasion. Whilst anthropologically speaking similar to the Yehti & Bigfoot, they are a distinct evolutionary line of naff, performing primates. Difficult to accurately describe due to their ghastly effects upon witnesses, who are often rendered at a loss for words. The horror of the sighting experience can be difficult to shake off.

Beware. Don't make eye contact. Don't get on stage with them.

You'll know one when you see one.

Funny thing with crypto animals like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster for example, there isn't evidence of a large enough population of these things for them to possibly exist or be what people say they are. People will say silly things like the Loch Ness Monster is a plesiosaur (these people believe that they never went extinct millions of years ago like they really did) that lives in the lake all by itself. Which means either this thing is millions of years old (which is ridiculous) or there's a lot more of them and somehow they've survived without any of us knowing about it.

With Bigfoot you've got the same kind of thing; people seem to think there's a family of "bigfoot" roaming around or at most maybe one bigfoot per state or as little as only one bigfoot in existence anywhere. All of these claims are totally nonsensical and don't jive at all with what we know about how different types of animals live and survive. You'd need a sizable population for these animals to have lasted, in the hundreds in number at least, and there just simply isn't substantial evidence for that.

That's not even counting absolutely no DNA evidence of an up 'til now totally undiscovered primate, nor the fact that any biologist, zoologist, or other related type of scientist worth his or her salt would kill to find evidence of this kind of thing. They'd be rich and famous if they did. And yet the "believers" seem to think that "big science" is trying to shut them up or downplay the evidence when they simply say to them "We don't believe you. Show us substantial evidence."

Hi All,

I think we may be missing an opportunity to read and study some of the seminal researchers in these areas and draw some magical inspiration from the Fortean genre.

The “patron saint” of all things unusual is a man by the name of Charles Fort, whose newest biography was recently penned by none other than Jim Steinmeyer.
The excellent British magazine is named eponymously after Fort’s surname: The Fortean Times (www.forteantimes.com) and maintains an admirably non-credulous stance on most things paranormal. The Cryptids discussed on this post are, by definition, "Fortean" phenomena.

Charles Fort can easily be a patron saint of the magical arts – his books are filled with musings that speak to the strangeness of the Universe we inhabit and he constantly exhorted mainstream thinkers to break out of their confined mental matrixes.

Many of his philosophical musings are decidedly magical in tone. Colin Wilson wrote that running through Fort's work is ‘the feeling that no matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.’

Fort often noted that the boundaries between science and pseudoscience are fuzzy; the boundary lines are not very well defined, and they might change over time.
He also pointed out that whereas facts are objective, how facts are interpreted depends on who is doing the interpreting and in what context – sound familiar, magicians?

For practitioners of natural magic, how about this quote: "If any spiritualistic medium can do stunts, there is no more need for special conditions than there is for a chemist to turn down lights, start operations with a hymn, and ask whether there's any chemical present that has affinity with something named Hydrogen."

Finally, Fort’s most fiendishly subtle and brilliant quote - for me, the masthead of an entire book on the topic of magical theory - "I cannot say that truth is stranger than fiction, because I have never had acquaintance with either."

Might be a good place for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJjUt2sXo5o

Any body ever heard of the Belt road booger. Sometimes called the Belk road Booger. Seen in a small town in Newnna Georgia.

Does anyone think the recent rash of 'found' mythological critters is real?

It comes in the form of a rash? Is it itchy?

I think they are 100% real. Seems to me the reality of..oh say Bigfoot for example is something everyone needs to decide for themselves. Which is Why I only charge $1.00 to step inside the tent and see the Jawbone, pictures, footprints, and other items found by Bigfoot hunters worldwide. Its a public service.

-Dugan

http://www.cfz.org.uk/ I am a member of said organisation and very much believe in fantastical creatures.

I myself have seen lake monsters, wild men, Old Shuck & countless oher little oddities.

I recently went to Yorkshire for some Troll hunting but they did not want to come out that day

I would love some more monster hunters to join me if anyone is interested!

Cheers,
Art.

Phillip Morris

The Erickson Project announced this week that they now have "evidence" of Bigfoot and may confirm with DNA. Can't wait to see how that pans out. I generally don't believe in such things, but I also allow for the idea that we haven't found everything there is to find on this big blue ball we call home.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/natio......2921673/

The Biggest Revelation in FINDING BIGFOOT series is that they never find bigfoot.

And I would imagine they never will.....