Loch Linnhe Monster

Loch Linnhe is a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland.  Loch Linnhe is 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) long, and an average of 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) wide.

In the 1940's, a witness said that she had seen a creature with a long neck swimming in Loch Linnhe.  It had a long, dark brown neck, small black eyes, and stubby rounded horns.

On June 21, 1954, Mr. Eric Robinson, for two minutes, observed three humps which were low in the water.  The humps were moving at 30-35 mph and the water was churning at the rear.

On June 22, 1964, Mrs. Preston saw the head and neck of a creature 25 yards away.

On, July 16, 1967, John Rankin Muir, William S. Muir, and some others saw, for ten minutes, a serpentine head and neck with two or three humps.  It surfaced, and then it submerged; wether it continually did this or not, I do not know.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Linnhe;
http://www.paranormaldatabase.com/reports/cryptodata.php?pageNum_paradata=6&totalRows_paradata=269;
The Monster of Loch Ness (First Paperback Edition) Mackal, Dr. Roy P. The Swallow Press 1976

Cloning a Mammoth

The woolly mammoth could be brought back to life in as little as four years thanks to a breakthrough in cloning technology.

Previous efforts in the 1990's to recover nuclei in cells from the skin and muscle tissue from mammoths found in the Siberian permafrost failed because they had been too badly damaged by the extreme cold.  But a technique pioneered in 2008, by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, was successful in cloning a mouse from the cells of another mouse that had been frozen for 16 years.

Now that hurdle has been overcome, Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University, is reactivating his campaign to "resurrect" the  woolly Mammoth.

"Now the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth," he told The Daily Telegraph.

He intends to use Dr. Wakayama's technique to identify the nuclei of viable mammoth cells before extracting the healthy ones.

The nuclei will then be inserted into the egg cells of an African elephant, which will act as the surrogate mother for the mammoth.

Professor Iritani said he estimates that another two years will be needed before the elephant can be impregnated, followed by the approximately 600-day gestation period.

He has announced plans to travel to Siberia in the summer to search for mammoths in the permafrost and to recover a sample of skin or tissue that can be as small as 3cm square. If he is unsuccessful, the professor said, he will ask Russian scientists to provide a sample from one of their finds.

"The success rate in the cloning of cattle was poor until recently but now stands at about 30 percent," he said. "I think we have a reasonable chance of success and a healthy mammoth could be born in four or five years."

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8257223/Mammoth-could-be-reborn-in-four-years.html

Note: Author does not agree with all of the content in the above source.

WWI Cryptid Sightings

Captain Georg Von Forstner, Captain of the German submarine, U28 in World War I:

“On July 30 1915, our U28  torpedoed  the  British  steamer  Iberian,  carrying  a  rich   cargo   in   the North  Atlantic.  The   steamer   sank   quickly,  the bow sticking almost  vertically  in  the   air.  When it had gone for  about  twenty-five  seconds,  there was a  violent  explosion. A little  later,  pieces  of the  wreckage,  and  among  them  a  gigantic  sea animal, withering and struggling wildly, was  shot out of the water to a height of 60  to 100  feet…  It was about 60 feet long,  was  like  a  crocodile  in shape, and had four limbs with  powerful  webbed feet, and a long tail tapering to a point.”

 

At 10:00 P.M., July 28, 1918, Commander Werner Lowisch of the submarine U-109 reported that he and another crew member saw a giant, crocodile-like monster that was near one-hundred feet in length.

 

Also, the British Navy recorded dozens of submarine periscope sightings, where there were no submarines.

Source: http://www.livingdinos.com/rebuttaltotheskepticI.html

Ogopogo 2009 sighting

On July 9, 2009, Wendy Sanderson and Gordon Krug saw a “snake-like creature” in Okanagan Lake, British Columbia.

Wendy Sanderson, in a letter to a newspaper, said, “I saw a large snake-like creature at the surface of the lake for about three minutes.  It was probably 30 feet long and as it slithered across the lake, it made humps at the surface.”

Source: http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/ogobousfield/

For more details: http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/ogobousfield/

Sea Serpents and a Dragon

Some reports from the 1600's of a dragon and sea serpents:

 

St. Lawrence River Monster: In 1609, Samuel de Champlain saw a serpent which he detailed as "a 20-foot serpent, with a horse-shaped head and body as thick as a keg".  He witnessed this creature on the St. Lawrence River near Montreal.1

 

Dragon: In 1619, while visiting Lucerne, Switzerland, Christopher Shores reported seeing a giant winged dragon that had a long neck and tail, and large jaws.2

 

Gloucester Sea Serpent: In 1638, John Josselyn reported, “They told me of a sea serpent, or snake, that lay quoiled up like a cable upon the rock at Cape Ann; a boat passing by with English on board, and two Indians, they would have shot the serpent, but the Indians dissuaded them, saying that if he were not killed outright, they would all be in danger of their lives...”3

 

Gloucester Sea Serpent: In 1641, Obadiah Turner reported the following off Lynn, Massachusetts: “Some being on ye great beache gathering of calms and seaweed which had been cast thereon by ye mightier storm did spy a most wonderful serpent a shorter way off from ye shore. He was big round in ye thickest part as a wine pipe; and they do affirm that he was fifteen fathoms [90 feet] or more in length. A most wonderful tale. But ye witnesses be credible, and it would be of no account to them to tell an untrue tale. Wee have likewise heard yt Cape Ann ye people have seene a monster like unto this, which did there come out of ye land much to ye terror of them yt did see him.”4

 

Sources: 1 http://www.lakechamplainmonster.org/ 2 http://www.livingdinos.com/rebuttaltotheskepticI.html 

3 http://www.unknownexplorers.com/gloucesterseaserpent.php 

4 http://www.unknownexplorers.com/gloucesterseaserpent.php

Morar Mystery

Loch Morar is a freshwater loch in Morar, Lochaber, Highland, Scotland.  Loch Morar's maximum length is 12 miles, and its maximum depth is 1,017 feet.

In Loch Morar there have been sightings of a strange creature(s) called Morag.  I would like to bring to your attention two sightings from Peter Costello's book, In Search of Lake Monsters.

In 1946, Mr. Alexander MacDonnell was taking a party of schoolchildren from the Comunn na h-Oigridh summer camp at Inverailort from Morar to Meoble in the Lovat estate boat.  As the boat was passing Bracorina Point on the northern shore, some of the children cried out, "Oh look!  What is that big thing on the bank over there?"  Mr. MacDonnell said he then saw an animal about the size of an Indian elephant, which plunged off the rocks into the water with a terrific splash.  Peter Costello, in his book, In Search of Lake Monsters, writes, "I think it must be the sinuous shape of the long neck, which looks rather like a trunk, as well as the dull grey colour [color], which brings an elephant to so many people's minds when trying to describe these animals.

On July 8, 1969, a regular visitor to Loch Morar, Bob Duff, was trolling down across Meoble Bay at about two knots.  The water at this point is very clear, about 16 feet deep with a white sandy bottom --- leaves could clearly be seen on the sand.  Looking over the side of the boat:

Mr. Duff saw what he described as a "monster lizard" lying on the bottom.  It was not more than 20 feet long, motionless, and looking up at him.  The shock of seeing it caused him to rev up and get away as fast as possible so that he only saw it momentarily.  As described and drawn by Mr. Duff, it appears he saw only the front part clearly.  The head was snake-like with a wide mouth and slit eyes.  As it was seen from above, the neck was not visible and its length could not be estimated.  It had four legs and the front legs were clearly seen to have three digits each.  The body, hindquarters and tail were only vaguely seen.  It was a grey-brown, the skin was rough like "burnt coke".

When Mr. Duff recovered his nerve, and came back to look for it, the animal was gone.

A Close Encounter

Okanagan Lake is a large, deep lake in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia.  Its depth is approximately 1000 ft.  From Okanagan Lake, there comes many reports of a mysterious creature (or creatures) named Ogopogo.  Below, is a close encounter with two Ogopogos!

In 2000, a marathon swimmer named Daryl Ellis saw two 20 to 30 foot long animals while he was swimming across the lake for nearly two hours.  One of the creatures swam near him and he could see its large eyes which were about the size of a grapefruit.  Their color was grey/black.

Now, this is definitely what I call "a close encounter!"

Sources: Dinosaurs: Dead or Alive? O'Donnell, Phillip Xulon Press 2006 and http://sunnyokanagan.com/ogopogo/

Dragon Reports

Keep in mind that these dragons, while they could be what you see in movies, could also be dinosaurs.  For, the word "dinosaur" was invented by Sir Richard Owen in 1841.  Before that time they were known as dragons.

The following article, from 1405, was discovered in a chronicle from England:

                                                  Close to the town of Bures, near

                                                  Sudbury, there  has lately appear-

                                                 ed, to the great hurt of the country-

                                                side, a dragon, vast in body, with

                                                 a crested head, teeth like a saw

                                                and a tail extend- ing an enormous

                                               length.

 

An official government report from London, England, written in 1793 says the following:

 

       “In the end of November and the beginning of

      December last, many  of  the  country  people

      observed…dragons…appearing in  the  north

     and  flying  rapidly towards   the   east;  from

     which they concluded,  and their  conjectures

    were  right,  that   boisterous  weather would

    follow.”

Sources:http://www.1timothy4-13.com/files/bible/dino.html and http://www.livingdinos.com/rebuttaltotheskepticI.html

 

Nessie Onshore

What does Nessie really look like?  Below is an early sighting of the Loch Ness Monster on land, which, to some degree, helps answer the above question.

In 1879, a group of children, apparently at the North shore near a graveyard, observed a strange creature coming down a hillside to Loch Ness.  The color of the creature was that of an elephant; gray.  It had a small head which was turning from side to side on a long neck.  It "waddled" into the water.  This sighting was related to Edward Smith by a woman who related it to him as a childhood memory.

Source: Mackal, Dr. Roy P. The Monsters of Loch Ness The Swallow Press 1976 First Paperback Edition

My "sighting" [Update]

I am now able to upload my photos!  Here they are:

What could it be?  Please comment.