1977: Year Of The Creature
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 13th, 2007
After I posted this morning’s blog “Flashback: Thirty Year Ago – South Dakota Bigfoot,”” about a Bigfoot flap taking place in 1977, Scott Maruna at The Anomalist commented: “Come to think of it, there were a lot of flaps going on that year.”
Indeed, there were.
The anniversary of the Dover Demon sightings (April 21-22, 1977) is rapidly approaching. On April 21, 2007, I’ll be a guest on the “Dover Demon” 30th Anniversary Special (“Dover Demon” is a chapter in Mysterious America), from 10 pm to Midnight, on the Eastern Spooky Southeast broadcast, on WBSM-AM, 1420 AM, New Bedford, Massachusetts. Later in the year, I’ll be giving a “Dover Demon” illustrated presentation at the “Mass Monster Mash” in Massachusetts in October 2007.
The March 2007 issue of TAPS Magazine (see ad to the right) has an update article about the Dover Demon and a companion “Coleman’s CryptoCorner” article with my top ten choices for the cryptids reported during 1977.
That year had, besides the Dover Demon, a series of livestock killings by a mysterious Black Panther in Ohio (beginning April 25, 1977), and the Lawndale Big Bird near-abduction (July 25, 1977) in Logan County, Illinois. Bizarre beast encounters took place so often thirty years ago, 1977 became known as the "Year of the Creature" because there were so many Bigfoot and other creature sightings occurring, especially in the Midwest.
As I mention in the TAPS article, “Year of the Creature” was coined by David Fideler, then the editor of The Anomaly Research Bulletin, and reinforced by concurrent, coincidential remarks by Ohio researcher Ron Schaffner.
Yes, Scott, there were a lot of flaps going on in 1977!
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.
And one year earlier, in 1976, we had our own strange creatures events here in Cornwall, UK. That was the year we had both the Owlman and sightings of Morgawr, (our sea monster), here in the same town.
1976-1977 was something like a peak period in the popularity of Cryptozoology. It also just so happens to have been a personal peak period in my Indiana fieldwork, and I only found out later that there were Illinois Big Bird sightings going on roughly at the same time I was collecting reports of the same sort in Indiana (not to imply any direct connection there). But then, all such reports I know about did start earlier and the wave persisted for a few years after that as well, so I don’t think 1977 was the whole story, just a time when it worked out that people were more open about reporting such things.
On the other hand, post-2000 seems to have become a period of genuine hostility against Cryptozoology and suppression of evidence all around. It is not necessarily that there are no reports, but ridicule of witnesses has skyrocketed again. People just are not as open about such things, except for a few diehards that have been pushing for “Monsters” all along.
I don’t see a hostility at all. We have had all these deep sea discoveries in the past two years ( the colossal squid ), the Hobbit, and now Jane Goodall says Bigfoot exists. I have seen an open attitude to cryptozoology in the public eye more lately than in the 80’s and 90’s.
Now those in the Ivory towers may be more hostile, but it could be they are getting jealous of all the cool things being discovered every other week, and aren’t getting the book sales they used to.
Speaking of the Dover Demon, does this have anything in common with it?
http://www.rense.com/general53/chile.htm