Cryptozoology Thread

[Mari]

yes especially if they look like us, people might get more upset then when they would look like bunnies for example.

[Nautipus]

Well, there are chimps that kill (but dont eat) other chimps, for no reason. Very human-like behavior, if you ask me. But we are yet to do anything.

[Mari]

Yeah, but what if they would find a clan of bigfoots that turn out to be sentient, you know, perhaps not yet human but not animal either. And they would eat eachother if it were convenient.
Then you have a tribe of creatures that might actually someday be able to think enough to go after humans.
Just a thought. Or people might think of them as "the missing link". People wouldn't like to find out that their ancestor or whatever is into cannibalism.

But that's a lot of if's.

[Nautipus]

True, but they are completely valid. It would be frightening to think that you were living near a creature that could overpower and eat you if it wanted (as the Native Americans believed). And I would be curious also as to why they hadnt already.

[me9996]

Why didn't it? We've got guns! Humans -as a spieces- have almost allways had weapons to defend ourselves against animals and each other.

The Bigfeet? Apperently not.

[Nautipus]

But do they know we do? (and keep in mind this is an "if they exist question) Have guns that is. If they could tell that our modern weaponry is more devastating than the weapons of the earlier settlers, that would denote an intelligence far greater than that shown, but then again, they havnt ever been filmed (exept once, and only for a few seconds) and are apparently nearly impossible to sneak up on. Could it be that they are observing us? That would be a scary thought.

[Nautipus]

Here's a neat little video. After this I'm goin to bed. G'night.
Bigfoot

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Mari

People wouldn't like to find out that their ancestor or whatever is into cannibalism.

All our ancestors were into cannibalism.

[Mari]

Yes but for many it is knowledge about a faraway past. Being pressed with your nose on the facts (was this a Dutch saying, or an Egnlish one? Can't remember! ) and actually seeing it in the present is a different thing.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Ancestors is ancestors.

To put this into perspective, hard as it is for furriners to believe, there are huge numbers of US citizens who don't believe we're related to other hominids or primates, anyway. So they'll remain blissfully untroubled by new science, since they're unacquainted with old science.

[Mari]

Ah, that's fortunate then. But as I imagine America, there are a lot of Christians there and many Christians don't believe in the evolution theory, sooo...
I don't know what I believe either. I can't say I care either way, since we are here now.

[Nautipus]

Too there are Christians who believe that God fasilitated evolution, and it was a tool he used to put us where we are. It is easy to look at the genetic makeup of alot of primates and see that they are very close to our own. There was even a case in Washington State (IIRC) where they believed a Sasquatch had left blood and fur on a doorstep of an unfinished house because there were screws that were exposed and a huge "footprint" in blood on it. They are currently sequencing the gene code as best they can, but they already say that the blood is only different to human DNA in one sequence. That alone rules out human possibilities, unless it was from a huge, genetically mutated man.

[strider8]

Have you heard about the footprints that have been found:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200712...b7e5c6f_1.html

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by strider8

Have you heard about the footprints that have been found:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200712...b7e5c6f_1.html

That's actually been put somewhere else as well. Different site, same news. Thanks for posting it, though.

[Nautipus]

found this:

MORE ON GIANT OCTOPUS NEAR BERMUDA ISLANDS

by mark@theshadowlands.net

Scientists knew that this creature is not just a myth ever since back in 1896 when a huge corpse was washed ashore on St. Augustine Beach, Florida. However, THAT octopus was dead. Scientists wanted living creature or photos. They got one important evidence in the summer of 1984. One fisherman from Bermuda islands, John P. Ingham, came up with an idea which would be very profitable for him. Giant octopus was way out of his mind when he constructed a trap for large crabs and other sea organisms which he would use at a depth of about 1800 meters (5900 ft). His plan worked and soon he started catching crabs 60 cm wide.
Then he built really heavy traps and armored them with 5 cm thick metal rings. They were 1.8 to 2.4 meters large and 1.2 meters deep. Ingham was dropping them into the ocean from his 15-meter fishing boat Trilogy.
By the end of August, Ingham already noticed few very unusual things. First he lost one of his traps after something suddenly pulled the cable. There was no obvious explanation. Then, on 3rd of September, few days after the first event, the crew was pulling out one trap, but when the trap was 600 meters (2000 ft)
below the surface something stopped its ascent, pulled the cable in the opposite direction and violently shaked the cable. The trap was lost.

Then, on September 19, Ingham set the trap at a depth of 850 meters (2700 ft). This time, they couldn't pull the trap out even with full engine power. Trilogy was equipped with a sophisticated sonar instrument called chromascope, and Ingham used it when the ship passed directly above the trap. He set the chromascope to
so-called split bottom mode. On the bottom of the ocean he could clearly see a pyramid-shaped silhouette 15 meters (50 ft) high. Something wrapped around their trap. Ingham and his crew decided they won't do anything violent. They'll sit and wait with cable engine ready.

After about 20 minutes, Ingham got a feeling that the ship was moving - like something was pulling it. He went to his cabin again to check navigation instruments. They confirmed his feeling. The ship was moving towards south at a constant speed of about one knot. When they passed about 500 meters, the thing that was pulling the rope, whatever it was, suddenly changed direction and headed for the shore. A bit later it suddenly turned again. Now Ingham was convinced that some kind of deep sea creature grabbed the trap
and pulled the trap along as it moved. Ingham touched the cable near surface of water. He says that he felt regular vibrations that traveled along the cable, like something walked on the ocean bottom, and vibrations were transferred along the cable. The impacts (vibrations) were always the same intensity and repeated themselves every few seconds. The 15-meter high silhouette, ship's movement, vibrations, traps he lost earlier - Ingham was convinced that he became the prey of a giant sea creature. Suddenly creature released the cable, so the crew easily pulled the trap out. Ingham looked at the chromascope - the silhouette was gone. The trap was all deformed and mostly damaged on the upper side. All of this clearly points to the Giant Bermudan Octopus. A creature which can keep the trap on the ocean bottom, resisting to the ship's engine power, the ocean depth on which event took place, location near Bermuda islands - octopus.
Perhaps we finally found where is the home of GBO.

And this:

[Original headline: Kraken hunters not the full squid ]

Moby Dick, move over.
That 19th century tale of adventure on the high seas is about to be challenged by a 21st century adventure beneath them, when the son of a legend sets sail from Port Moresby to chase the shadow of a myth. The son of a legend is 61-year-old Jean-Michel Cousteau, who is due to leave Port Moresby on October 1 on an expedition which would do his late famous father, Jacques, proud. The myth Cousteau is chasing is the "kraken", a giant squid with eyes the size of soccer balls, a beak which can tear through bone and wood and a reputation almost as big as its one-tonne, tentacled frame. Moby Dick author Herman Melville immortalised the mysterious creature when he wrote about a duel-to-the-death between a squid and a sperm whale in his 1851 classic. In reality, little is known about the world's largest invertebrate. Although carcasses have been found tangled in fishing nets, washed up on various beaches and half-digested in the stomachs of sperm whales the only known predator of the squid it has never been seen alive. That is because the giant squid, dubbed the "kraken" by the ancient Greeks, spends most of its life in cold darkness thousands of metres beneath the ocean waves. But that was before Deep Ocean Odyssey, the adventure-exploration company co-founded by Cousteau, sponsored the development of the Deep Rover, a revolutionary, clear bubble of a craft which its designers say can dive deeper, stay down longer, and manoeuvre more freely than any other conventional submarine. Deep Ocean Odyssey now has two Deep Rovers, worth more than a $1 million each, ready to carry its scientists and cameraman deep into the Kaikoura Canyon off the east coast of New Zealand in pursuit of what the Cousteau-led team calls the "giant calamari". Teeming with marine life, Kaikoura is known to be a veritable McDonald's drive-through for pods of sperm whales presumably hunting giant squid. The Cousteau team plans to follow the sperm whales 650m into the canyon, where they will load up the Deep Rover's arms with fresh bait, switch off their engines and lights and simply wait. No one is sure what will happen if and when a squid fixes its dinner plate-sized eye on two human beings sitting in a transparent bubble. What is known is that it can move at lightning speed, has the ability to change colours in the blink of an eye and judging by the wounds left on the carcasses of whales it has bested in hostile encounters has remarkable strength in its eight arms, all of which are lined with toothed suckers. "I'm not sure I want to be in a sub if he takes it and decides to keep it as a toy," Cousteau confessed wryly at a media briefing in New York.
Story originally published by The Courier-Mail / Australia | By Christine Jackman - April 29 2000

Just neat little tidbits.

[Mari]

Cool stories. Did they manage to find them in the end?

[Nautipus]

In the first story, it is clear that something organic was draging the ship. They never acrually found the octopus, but they have found "carcasses". But if you look at the natural histories of various octopus species, you will find that (especially in Octopus dolfeini) they are known to grab crab traps full of crabs, as well as boat anchors, and drag them to their layer to eat. If someone had dove on the spot where the trap had been taken, then they may have found the den the octopus was residing in. But they have yet to find a living animal.

The second story never panned out, I think. I havnt followed it, and will need to look up more on it.

[Mari]

That's kinda cool. I don't need evidence to believe in stuff like this

[Nautipus]

Yeah, I wish there were photographs.

[GrayMouser]

And don't forget this poor endangered beastie:


Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/