Mummified Baby Nessie or Carnival Gaff?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on September 25th, 2012
Found on Facebook, not quite the same as FOAF (friend of a friend).
With almost certainty that this is a gaff as Loren posted about here on Cryptomundo in the past, I thought it interesting enough within the cryptozoological angle to share here with the Cryptomundians.
Mummified Baby Nessie with Internal Organs
The gentleman in the photo, reportedly a physician that conducted the autopsy on the wee beastie presented here (if memory serves), may have been rumored to have participated in the Bathymetrical Survey of the Fresh-Water Lochs of Scotland.
The provenance card accompanying the exhibit identifies him as Dr. Alexander Moore.
“1912 Dr. Alexander Moore led an expedition to prove the existance (sic) of a creature said to live in Loch Ness. His team searched the loch for more than 3 weeks and returned with one infant specimen. The creature was already dead when it was discovered but the Dr. was able to preserve the heart, one lung and a segment of intestine.”
Doc Weitzel’s Traveling Curiosity Show
Old Gettysburg Village, Gettysburg, PAStrange World
According to Roadside America, Doc Weitzel’s Traveling Curiosity Show closed in 2010, and I’m guessing that the “Mummified Baby Nessie with Internal Organs” has disappeared forever…
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
It’s a Feejee Mermaid, or maybe the ERASERHEAD baby…
Looks like a gaff to me. I wonder if there is a way to get DNA from it, that is if it is not a papier-mâché sculpture or a few animal corpses sewn together.
Cool, and at the same time dreadfully disturbing. I feel awful for the animals they sacrificed to make the thing, but back then, they really didn’t think that much about animals.
The teeth and scull are a cat.
RR999: What leads you to think LIVE ANIMALS were used to make this? As far as I know, this is usually not, or ever, the case.
Most definitely fake!
Goodfoot,
The old Fiji Mermaid was a monkey and a fish sewn together.
Modern day Gaffs often use animals that are already dead (roadkill and such) for their taxidermy creations.
This model is doubtless a gaff, probably made of paper maché, but the jaws are real bone, but its really extremely hard to say from what animal. Actually this model is really quite… well, not well-made. The internal organs are also obviously sculpted from sculpey or something similar.
I think so too, Dewey. Pure HUMBUGGERY.
Same that the Baby Bessie found in Lake Erie. Hoax. Taxidermistic hoax.