New Mokele-mbembe Expedition Departs
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 12th, 2006
The latest expedition to search for the “dinosaurlike” cryptids known by African natives as mokele-mbembe has departed. Milt Marcy, Peter Beach and Rob Mullin left Portland, Oregon for Cameroon on January 10, 2006. They will be teaming up with Pierre Sima to conduct the next phase of the cryptozoological research on the Congo/Cameroon border.
The Milt Marcy Expedition is the fourth such trek to Africa, with the three before this one being lead by William Gibbons. Marcy is an insurance broker (Milt Marcy Insurance) in Portland, Oregon, who has funded the last three expeditions, and will be participating in this one himself as Gibbons cannot go.
The four expeditions have been greatly assisted by the cryptozoology-friendly government of Cameroon (they received all their official documents quickly). Furthermore, Pierre Sima has collected several new reports of Mokele-mbembe activity in the river system which borders the Congo Republic. Ed Holdroyd, an atmospheric scientist, has also helped the expedition by providing some superb high resolution satellite photographs of an undisclosed area of the river system where Gibbons, Marcy, and all believe the animals are currently active.
Through a combination of field expeditions, recons by
Pierre Sima, native reports and the satellite images, the Milt Marcy Expedition feel that they can now track the migration patterns of mokele-mbembe much more effectively.
The CryptoZoo News will update with reports we receive coming from the field for Cryptomundo readers. Check back.
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.
To those who are interested in this subject may find the following of interest. I have spent a good deal of time exploring the southern regions of Venezuela. During a Heliocopter flight far to the south of Angel Falls, I had the good fortune of seeing 3 very large creatures perched on a huge boulder in the middle of a stream. These amazing creatures were around 200 pounds and had bodies shaped like a Seal with front flippers that had non-retractable claws about 3-4 inches long. They were Reptilians with heads like a Monitor Dragon. They were very powerful and built for fighting the strong current and could kill a man with ease.
There was a TV program on cable here in the U.S.A. called Terra-X, that had produced a segment about a College Professor from Caracas, Venezuela who saw them as well.
An expedition that I would not mind being in…especially since the herpetofauna and fishes of the Congo region are a bit of a speciality of mine. I wish them the best of luck, and failing to secure definitive proof of Mokele Mbembe, I hope that they come out with at least the discovery of at least one new species of squamate.
I sure hope that they find some convincing evidence also. This mystery has always intrigued me and brings out the “little kid” passion of dinosaurs in everyone!
To Dave in the first post, I guess you did not have any camera be it video or still with you when you saw the creatures? How close were you to them , tree tops or higher? They didn’t go for the water cause of the helicopter sound?
Its like you descibed a Komodo dragon with flippers.
I think this is a good time to put forth my theory about Mokele-mbembe’s identity. I would like to propose that if these animals are dinosaurs, they are more likely to be Segnosaurs than Sauropods. The Segnosaurs were (are?) aberrant dinosaurs that lived in Asia and Africa. The African species resembled scaled-down Sauropods and may have been semi-aquatic. While they are commonly classified as Therapods, I subscribe to the alternate theory that they are actually highly specialized, late-surviving Prosauropods.
And Dave, your animals sound rather like Mosasaurs, don’t they?
Chad
Correction: sorry, I got a little ahead of myself with that description of my theory. Segnosaurs have only been found in Asia and North America so far, not sure where I got the idea they lived in Africa.
Chad
Man, I wish I was prominent enough to get on the list for an expedition.
We amateurs should start our own.
BATGIRL
Hope that this expedition succeeds. If there are living dinos—then the question is how can they survive in a very small breeding group? Are they all female? There are alot of questions to be answered.
Batgirl: Prominence has little to do with it….a fat bank account and/or celebrity does.
When he was in his dinosaur obsession phase (from 5-7 yrs. old) my son developed a persistent belief that a living version would be found in Africa. He was specific: It would be able to hide in water, undetected, because it would be a version of the Archelon–a turtle relative. Why? Who knows. Good luck. Here are the facts:
This giant turtle could live to 100 years old, possibly thanks to taking long sleeps on the seabed
Type: Reptile
Size: 4.6m
Diet: Omnivorous
Predators: Mosasaurs and sharks
Lived: Late Cretaceous, 75-65 million years ago
Link
If he turns out to be right, I guess I’m going to have to listen to him a lot better than I do now–though now he’s into gravity, dark matter and magnetism and I can’t really match him–if I ever could.
Batgirl –
When I win the lottery you can be on my expedition team.
By the time we get back from the Congo the only thing “prominent” about us will be our odor.
Seriously though, the only thing keeping me from going on my own expeditions is money. As soon as Bill Gates pays me back that loan I’ll be all set!
Does anyone remember a doco quite a while back where the native tribesmen of the area were shown a guidebook of African animals, and they all very firmly identified one of the rhino species as the mokele-mbembe? The theory was that, as the rainforest had been in ecological terms a savannah only yesterday, the rhinos had become stranded in the rainforest and had adapted to the water instead of dying out. If this is true, it might account for their famous, notoriously vile temper.
Strictly speaking, if we did find a living dinosaur species, would they be in fact dinosaurs or something else? If one could find some impossible way (Jurassic park anyone?) of comparing the DNA of a modern coelacanth to an ancient one, I wonder what the odds are that they’d be genetically the same species. Just a thought.
No, you don’t need to be rich or famous to mount an expedition, even for Mokele-mbembe. See this site:
http://www.extreme-expeditions.net/
These blokes are entirely self-financing. However, it is best to avoid the Congo!
Dave-
It sounds like you described a fully aquatic crocodilian, possibly a smaller relative of the extinct Metriorhynchus.
I’ve heard stories that mokele mbembe may have lived in Okavango Delta and Zambias marshes hundreds of years ago. Did anyone else hear about that?
Dave hasn’t explained how Hugo Chavez allowed him to fly a helo in his country and near the falls. Hugo is way too paranoid for that with Dubya’ sneakin’ around Venezula these days…
I’m also totally amazed at the extremely fine detail Dave had of the creatures wieght, claws, etc. in a noisy vibrating helo and the rotor noise and wash didn’t frighten them off. And no camera? Then why rent the helo??? Dave may just be pullin’ our legs???
BTW A insurance agent in Africa IS an amateur expedition. I hope they brought some Blackwater mercs with them into the jungle. Its one thing to have Cameroon permision but totally another with Congolese permision. How many RoC soldiers have or know how to work a GPS unit. Try explainin’ that your GPS says you are not trespassing or snooping on them… Where’s the updates? It’s almost March 2006. Don’t they have Iridium sat-phones???
I have been looking into the Auyantepui sightings for some time now, and Mr. Iles report piques my curiosity. There does, however, seem to be a dissimilarity in the size description of these animals, which seems consistent with their supposed geographic distribution. Thus, Mr. Iles, I have a few questions with regards to this supposed sighting:
1) Were the animals on located on the summit of the tepui near Angel Falls, or were they located in the lowlands near the base of the tepui?
2) What color were they?
3) In what capacity were you flying near Auyantepui? As a scientist, or tourist, or something else?
4) Did this sighting occur in the wet season or the dry season?
Further information would be greatly appreciated.
-Laz