Apache Cryptids
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 22nd, 2009
I get emails. People write me often.
But anonymous emails with no contact information do not help.
Beside the fact they could be hoaxes or wild goose chase missives, informants with identities are important. To get into a community, especially one that is closed and/or extremely close-knit, I need contacts, even if carefully de-identified ones in the public record, not just hints of what’s happening. Reports are only as credible as the people sharing them, remember.
As an extreme example, let me share an anonymous email received yesterday:
“I live on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, where there has been many sightings of Bigfoot. However, there are sightings of other things. Since I was a child there has been sightings of small men that live in the mountains, goat man, giant snakes that make noise like cows, and many other things. I wish to stay anonymous, due to secrecy. But maybe you can research it. Fort Apache reserve. Look up the reservation, the huge snake has been seen and heard by many people! It sticks to the ponds and rivers! You’d be surprised by all the stories and evidence you can collect here.”
No return email, no name, no phone number, nothing attached to inform me whom the sender is.
I can Google “Apache” and “giant snake,” of course, and find tales, as well as the next person, like this one:
Arizona. Early in this century a 14-footer lived in the Huachuca Mountains along the Mexican border. It had the unpleasant habit of slithering after prospectors, running them into their cabins and laying siege to them. The size and behavior of this snake suggest it may have been a descendant of the Apache snakes that once infested this area. Apache shamans would talk giant snakes into ambushing whites.
Sports Illustrated, October 21, 1974.
Or I can research such things in books such as Boss Snakes: Stories and Sightings of Giant Snakes in North America by Chad Arment.
But my gosh, if someone wants me to come to their area and investigate, hopefully, they would leave contact info.
Also, I am part Indian, and I respect that First Peoples’ reservations are not exactly open to strangers coming in and poking around. Contacts are important as far as keys to deeper information, not just moments that will be remembered only as “let’s-tell-the-cryptozoologists-good-stories.”
🙂 Thank You.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Interesting stuff, it would certainly be great to have that information so you could at least try and get some of the personal stories rather than just a list of different things someone says they have seen.
It is too bad the e-mail certainly draws interest, but you’re absolutely right more information is a necessity and if they truly wanted to be anonymous I have little doubt you would respect that wish when presenting information.
I suppose the grammar mistakes and overuse of exclamation marks don’t mean for sure that this is suspicious, but when coupled with the over-generalized information and lack of contact information, things certainly seem to point that way. That’s the thing with the internet. There are just so many anonymous people out there googling, mailing, and posting consequence free that it is hard to parse out what is real from the deluge of stuff coming in from all around. I’d say give this a pass unless there is some more concrete information or details forthcoming.
Three thoughts:
1) More information definitely should have been forthcoming. Too bad the person chose to be completely anonymous.
I still think it MIGHT be worth investigating. Call me a “hopeless romantic.” 🙂
2) I totally understand Native Americans being weary of non-Indians poking around the their turf and dealing with stuff they do not understand and respect. Plus, (and I hate to say it and I apologize in advance if anyone gets upset) I can’t blame some Native Americans for being tired of having things they probably experience on a daily basis be dismissed as hallucinations of “superstitious, drunken Indians” by a good portion of the rest of “scientific” non-Native Americans. And by that I mean, “rational, logical experts” who “live in the twenty-first century” and have gone beyond “nonsense.”
I’m not Native American but like I said, I totally understand.
3) Again, Loren, I’m not trying to start anything but I just feel that the dismissiveness of many in the public and scientific towards Native American experiences is disheartening, condescending, closed-minded, sad and even prejudiced. MY opinion, of course.
I just mostly understand why that anonymous emailer probably chose to remain anonymous.
Nobody likes to be mocked or dismissed or jeered at.
Not saying YOU would do that, or course. Or most in the cryptozoological community. But the man/woman probably “knows better.” Have been “burned” in the past, so to speak. Probably even by people within his/her own community.
Let’s just be more open to certain things, shall we not?
End of rant.
Very interesting…
Though I have to admit, I may have sent Loren an email or two with no name listed, but at least it had a return email address…
Hey Loren…Sorry, I will include contact info in the future.
(Note: The above email was NOT from me)
I have to agree with Loren as I am also part Indian and have had a deep respect for Native beliefs for many years, not just Native Americans. While there are a good many who say the animals/being/etc Natives tell about are only products of the imagination brought about through the use of various herbs, drinks, etc, and some of them probably are, I think there is enough real evidence there are somethings Natives, at least some, can see which others cannot because the others are just not in tune with the world around them.
I am also inclined to think this email is a hoax because any one who really knows Loren is going to know he would not divulge anything he was told in confidence. I suspect someone went thru various books and found a few stories to put in an email hoping Loren would do just what he did.
Just the comment “I wish to stay anonomous, due to secrecy” sends up red flags on this post, in my mind.
If he would have explained his reasons of anominty with something more plausable, then I would tend to believe him.
And as far as snakes that can make sounds like a cow, it’s just not anatomically possible.
I do believe in bigfoot, and it is possible that there are little people and men that resemble goats, such as the ‘Mexican Werewolves’.
I’m sorry Loren, but given my skeptical nature, I would tend to believe that someone with obnoxious intents has tried to this forum for his own twisted amusement.
To go by the likes of the Springer show, you’d think everyone in American’d be queueing up to tell the world, “I was an innocent muledriver – until the day Bigfoot rode my ass!”
But much to many European’s surprise, some Americans are actually quite shy and retiring and don’t actualy want endless attention – nor’re such timid souls particularly encouraged to seek fame by the furore generated by the likes of the frozen ‘Squatchicle episode.
And of course your two red neck chums, (with their refrigerated rubber ape suit), bring up the issue of those who’re so shameless they’ll do and say anything in full view of the world.
This guy, though, seems to be motivated by an urge to put something out there he feels the world ought to be paying more attention to. He not only all but brushes aside the normal star attraction, Bigfoot, (which, if he was grandstanding, he’d actually play up), but he doesn’t even try to imply he’s actually seen any of the other critters he refers to. Rather, he mentions his childhood in a way that suggests he’s recently become aware of an upsurge in reports of phenomena which tend to be neglected if only because they tend to recur in not only sporadic but unpredictable cycles.
If I’m right Loren, you suspect his expression of a desire to remain anonymous is an opening gambit to test if you”ll deal with him on his terms. I suspect the same.