What Was The Mystery Body?

Scenes from the bridge. Photos by Suzanne Feliciano of The Vicksburg Post. (If both images are not visible, click “refresh” on your browser and reload.)

Okay, I’ve been waiting for a week for some followup or conclusion to this, but it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. Therefore, I’ll post on the story of this mysterious carcass and see if this is the week we can hear more. Or see more.

Last Monday, February 16, 2009, an unidentified body was found in the Big Black River near U.S. 80, outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

It was believed to be human (in conjunction with the search for a missing man). But then, as the autopsy on the body began on February 17th, it was determined it was not human. The Vicksburg Post reported it was an “unidentified animal.”

The finding was announced by the Mississippi State Crime Lab in Jackson, but they didn’t mention what kind of animal it was.

“It is not human,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said. “I repeat, it is not human.”

Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey, standing in for the Hinds coroner, had said immediately on February 16th that he could identify nothing from the remains.

The body was found by a father and son looking through scopes on rifles on U.S. 80 just east of Warren-Hinds county line at about 3 pm on the afternoon of February 16.

During the body’s recovery, “as many as 20 law enforcement officials were staged on a concrete bridge over Big Black backwater as the remains were taken from the water about 75 yards from the bridge and brought to land,” said The Vicksburg Post.

On the 17th of February, Jackson, Mississippi’s Clarion-Ledger noted that Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin confirmed also that state Crime Lab tests showed a body found on February 16th, in the Big Black River was “an animal but not a human.”

There has been no followup article in any media, which, of course, has lead to wild speculation. One comment maker to the Vicksburg paper, who identifies herself or himself as “RangerB” even wrote: “The mystery animal you all wait for, is simply a badly decomposed black bear. NOT A BIGFOOT. Take a deep breath people.”

Of course, without official word from the authorities and it being passed along in the media, such a comment has to be labeled as merely speculation itself.

If I hear of any further information released on what species has been linked to the body, I’ll update this posting.

No closeup photos have surfaced of the carcass. Where’s Boing Boing, Smoking Gun, or TMZ when we really need them?

Loren Coleman 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.

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