July 27, 2006

Cryptomundo Exclusive: Thylacine Photos

Aussie cryptozoologist Mike Williams shares the photos with the readers of Cryptomundo.

Finally found the thylacine photos with the story. Thought you might like to use it on your blog. The majority of the newpaper text is under the photos. I don’t believe the photos have ever appeared online together before.!!

The photos were released "Sunday Tasmanian" pages 10+11 April 16th 2006.

An interesting claim, from Mr Emmerichs, is that the photos are actually embedded in the hardrive of the camera itself which might make it harder to accuse the Emmerichs of computer manipulation.

The photos are pretty bad and the problems with the dates/camera settings etc are large.

But…the cynic in me suggests that because the story/photos stink they just might be real.

With crypto evidence, when its great… its probably fake..

Oh the paradox of it all.

Mike Williams

The photos have been removed from Cryptomundo at the request of Mr. Emmerichs. Please see the this post on Cryptomundo titled, The Case of the Missing Thylacine, for the reason why.

Sunday Tasmanian  
April 16th 2006 pages 10 and 11

TWO German tourists who say they have taken a photo of a Tasmanian tiger have returned to the state in a bid to prove the images are legitimate.

A relative of the couple previously tried to sell the photos to Melboume’s The Age newspaper for about $20,000.

The pair have supplied the pictures to the Sunday Tasmanian for nothing, but they still want to be paid $1000 if the images are published interstate.

Experts, including the Sunday Tasmanian’s chief photographer Leigh Winbum, have cast doubts over the authenticity of the blurry pictures because:

The images are blurred despite being taken by an auto-focus camera.. There is a discrepancy with the dates on the image and that of other images on the same camera.

The images are very reminiscent of a famous thylacine photograph taken in the 1930s.

The experts say current software packages mean such images can be made quite easily.

But Klaus Emmerichs and Birgit Jansen stand by their claim, saying they took the photos while in the Cradle.

They found a dirt road and pulled off to the side.

"We wanted to eat something and she [Birgit] must have water, we wanted to sleep there," Mr Emmerichs said.

Mr Emmerichs said he could hear running water and walked down an embankment about 20m to a creek.

There he saw an animal he said he had never seen before.

"I see him running, there was a log over the’ creek, he came snuffling along the ground," Mr Emmerichs said.

A similar snuffling was coming from behind the log and Mr Emmerichs said he believed it may have been another one of the creatures.

"The same noise was coming from near the fallen tree," he said. "I turned the camera on and it makes a noise when I turn it on and his head went up, I made one shot and then I take a second shot and he goes off in the bush.

"It was only about 30 seconds."

Mr Emmerichs said he went and got Birgit to look.

"It was an animal I never see before, so I got her and she came down to the water but then I thought the animal could be angry, it could be violent, if he have young," he said.

He said they then returned to the car and looked at the photographs.

"We decide not to sleep there any more," he said. "We drove to Zeehan and slept in the car."

The couple said they then spent another two weeks in Tasmania touring.

"We saw a picture on the Cascade beer of the tiger but we did not know it was so important directly, we thought it might be rare," he said.

They then flew out of the state and holidayed in Port Douglas before returning to Melbourne to .fly back home to Germany.

While in Melbourne they visited Mr Emmerichs’ brother, who has been livmg m Australia since the 1970s."I showed him all the photographs and he was very surprised, he said it was the Tasmanian tiger, 100 per cent.

A number of doubts about the images have been raised.

Photographers consulted by the Sunday Tasmanian say the extent of blurring in the images is not consistent with autofocus on a modern digital camera.

Mr Emmerichs, however, said the images are blurry because he used a function called night vision which simulates a slow shutterspeed and allows pictures to be taken without flash in poor light.

The function consistently produced blurry images and so the couple stopped using it.

Another criticism of the images is that there is a discrepancy with the consecutive dates of the images.

The photograph before the first thylacine image uses the abbreviation JAN for January.

But the thylacine image uses the numeral 2 instead of FEB for February.

Mr Emmerichs said the discrepancy was caused by Birgit changing the format while on the plane to Tasmania.

The camera was still set on German time and date and she tried to reset it coming into Tasmania.

There has also been some criticism of the images that they are very reminiscent of another famous thylacine photograph taken in the 1930s.

A strange play of light has also been suggested as flash flare off a shiny surface.

But Mr Emmerichs said the fact the photographs are embedded on the hardware in his Ricoh camera proves they have not been manipulated on a computer.

He said he did not know he still had the images after leaving Melbourne last year.

The images were left with his brother on a CD taken from the camera’s chip.

"But these images are still in the camera, we did not know until we got home," he said.

Mr Emmerichs said he had watched in dismay from Germany as the saga of the photographs played out.

"We came back to get proof," he said.

The Sunday Tasmanian did not pay for these images.

Filed under Alien Big Cats, Bigfoot Report, Breaking News, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Mystery Cats, Out of Place, Public Forum, Thylacine