Mystery Photo, Killer Crocs & Cats + Circus Trains
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 15th, 2009
Your mystery photograph to solve has two different series of questions to think about today.
1) What is the general story behind “it”? What is “it” said to be in terms of cryptozoology and the place the image holds in hominology?
2) More importantly, what do you think “it” really represents? What do you see in the photograph that may have never been noticed before? What is “it”?
Here “it” is.
What could this thing be?
Meanwhile, on television tonight, it is “repeats” on MonsterQuest, and a treat about circus trains.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009: History cable channel, check local listings.
08:00 PM Eastern (also later, check local listings)
MonsterQuest: Killer Crocs
Using the latest high-tech equipment, MonsterQuest takes a scientific look at legendary creatures around the world, creatures eyewitnesses claim to see to this day. Each episode will examine all the evidence available, from pictures and video to hair and bones, as well as the eyewitness accounts themselves. Believers, skeptics and scientists will weigh in, but what will the evidence reveal?
09:00 PM Eastern (also later, check local listings)
MonsterQuest: Lions in the Backyard
Mountain lions do occasionally attack humans, and when they do it makes headlines across the country. However, it has been reported that people are seeing something else–attacks by large black cats. Pictures and law enforcement encounters prove a big black cat is out there, while it resembles a mountain lion, there is no such thing as a black mountain lion. From Texas to Minnesota to West Virginia, follow the eyewitness accounts and physical evidence of these demon cats. Bones from a carcass that eyewitnesses claim was a huge black cat will be put to the DNA test. One-part history, one-part science and one part monsters discover the truth behind legendary monsters.
Please note, this other interesting program, also to be broadcast on Wednesday night on History, fits well with those doing additional research on all those “circus train wreck” escapees.
11:00 PM Eastern
Extreme Trains: Circus Train
Hop aboard the longest privately owned train in the world, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey’s circus train. PT Barnum’s circus train started in the 1870s; and the US military used circus loading techniques in World War I. Host Matt Bown and the circus must race against the clock to dismantle tons of equipment and get it on the rails. As they travel from Baltimore to the Washington, DC corridor in the dead of night, Matt discovers the less glamorous side to the greatest show on earth.
For those without cable, you can presently view the full episode of MonsterQuest’s “Mega-Jaws,” without embedded ads during the program, here.
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.
What it is: a dead lynx (or possibly puma) in winter fur, having been hung up and gutted, now laying on the snpw with paws still tied together.
What is has been purported to be: a dead juvenile sasquatch.
The photo is: nothing. Seriously nothing. Fake.
Greetings All!
Looks like a Standard Poodle to me! Muzzle pointed (more-or-less) toward the viewer.
i agree with Fossilhunter, looks like a dog to me. maybe not a poodle, but maybe a bouvier or something along those lines.
Poodle or some other bushy dog.
I agree with Kittenz. Looks like a dead feline, species indiscernible.
I am pretty sure it is a dead cougar/mountain lion….whatever you want to call it. No hands, just paws. I have only ever seen this photograph in one of my old John Green books, I think it was On The Track Of The Sasquatch. I believe it also a very old photograph from the early 1900’s.
The full photograph is in the Bigfoot Casebook by Janet and Colin Bord.
The caption reads “This photograph shows an an unidentified animal shot by trappers at Lillooet in British Columbia early in the 20th century.” No other info available.
As far as the identity of the creature is concerned, I’ll go along with what Kittenz proposed, a lynx or puma possibly?
The first time I saw it I said “Dog.” I’m willing to consider it’s a “lynx” as well, like Kittenz said. She’s more of an “expert” than I am, anyway. Either a Dog or a Lynx. One of the other.
Was thought to be Sasquatch.
Fun guessing game, this is.
Oh Yeah—
Could also be a “puma” as well, like Kittenz also said.
🙂
My first thought was the same as Kittenz, some species of cat.
To Me it looks like a dead big cat
mfs is right about the photo being in the Bords’ “Casebook.”
The uncropped version of this photo has two snowshoes to the left of the carcass, stuck upright in the snow. The exposed part of the snowshoe, based on the foot straps in the middle, is about 2 1/2-3 feet long. This is comparable to the length of the carcass, and to the small spruce behind it (it looks like a spruce or possibly a fir, but not a pine). So we are talking about some kind of quadruped animal 2 1/2 to 3 feet long. No way this is a Bigfoot. It looks like it was taken in the Canadian wilderness.
Although one can certainly look at the carcass as having the head to the left and the head looking somewhat doglike, on more careful inspection, the portion to the left appears to be the hindquarters of a lynx. The striped bob-tail can be seen, and the large paws also; the right hind paw has a piece of twine or leather thong tied around it leading up and over the forequarters to the right.
The front portion of the carcass is more obscured. You cannot see the head from this angle, as the small head would be behind the forequarters at this angle, very close to the sapling spruce tree.
At least that’s what I see IMHO.
Poodle in dire need of a haircut.
Looks like a black feline? with woolly?????
Looks like not-a-sasquatch, to say the least. If I had to go further, I’d say dead dog or dead puma/lynx.
On the other hand, if you squint a little, it looks like a guy in an ape-suit faceplanting.