AOL Picks Top Cryptozoology Stories
Posted by: Loren Coleman on December 30th, 2010
AOL has picked the stories in cryptozoology which they find are the tops for 2010. Compiled by contributor Lee Speigel, he introduces his list, thusly:
“Monsters: They lurk in our fears, our imaginations, and sometimes, in our lakes and forests.
Sea serpents; tall, hairy creatures; unicorns; blood-sucking doglike animals — they’ve all been in the news this year. They’re either real, myth or simply new and previously unknown beasts that share the world with humans and come under the category of cryptozoology: the study of hidden or unknown animals.
Here’s a look back at some of the more interesting cryptozoology stories that we covered in 2010.”
The top stories, several of which were first noted at Cryptomundo, included:
1) Loch Ness Monster history discovery that in the 1930s, officials tried to get the Scottish government to protect and defend the “monster” known as Nessie.
Related Stories:
• Ex-Detective Hunts the Loch Ness Monster
• Does the Loch Ness Monster Have English Relatives?
• No Sea Serpents Here, Says UK’s Royal Navy
2) The finding of a mammal known as the saola, dubbed the “Asian unicorn.”
Related Story:
• Chinese ‘Unicorn Cow’ Horns In on Fame
3) The Bigfoot sighting on a North Carolina mountaintop property of the creature reportedly was covered in yellow hair.
Related Story:
• China Hunting for Dollars to Hunt Bigfoot
4) The breaking news that the cuddly looking red panda was found as fossils at the Gray Fossil site in Tennessee.
5) Finally, AOL declared it was “Chupacabra: Year of the Goat Sucker,” for numerous reports in different states included photographs of strange-looking hairless beasts with shriveled skin.
Related Stories:
• Chupacabra Watch: Kentucky Creature Could Be Hairless Coyote
• Chupacabra Alert: 300 Goats Mysteriously Slaughtered in Mexico
• Are These Strange Animals Actually Chupacabras?
For the full article, see 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.
It was a pretty thin year for sensational Cryptozoology stories. In a way that’s a good thing. It’s nice to not see a story about someone hoaxing committed researchers.
As Loren always points out, Cryptozoology is about more than the search for monsters, it’s about bringing modern tools and scientific rigor to the search for legends.
Here’s hoping that 2011 brings us more re-discovered species once thought extinct. Good luck to all out in the field doing serious scientific studies. With some luck, along with some rehab, perhaps I’ll be back out in the woods this summer.
Happy New Year to all.