March 15, 2009
Beware the ides of March, especially if one is in the midst of a wave of old news being presented as new, which seems to be the case lately. You really have to begin to wonder about the recycling that we’ve all have seen in the cryptozoo news lately.
Even though we all knew soon after the recent publication of the “Borneo giant snake” photographs that they were fakes, had been on the internet for years, and linked back to even older pictures, Cryptomundo dutifully covered the story on February 19, 2009. You almost get the feeling it takes some people a long time to finally catch up. The fake images weren’t even from Asia!
Now, as last week ends, AOL posts this story as one of their main news items, starting up the drumbeat, all over again. I’m beginning to hear from readers from Iraq to Massachusetts about this story.
I tried to resist. I really did. Why should I repeat old news here, I thought? But it didn’t work. I began getting alerts from folks that the big snake was back to haunt us. So, in the spirit of completeness and so I won’t be overwhelmed with email messages from people who think I’ve missed it, here’s the AOL item, below.
You’ll see it has no love for the readers of Cryptomundo or other sites that exposed this early, but plenty for The Daily Mail, Scientific American, and a Kansas librarian (hey, who might be a Cryptomundian, you never know).
Enjoy a cup of tea, an English muffin, and a swift walk through this one.
🙂
‘Borneo Monster’ Photos Proven Fake
Suspicious images that emerged last month showing what some believed to be a legendary giant snake in Borneo have been proven to be fakes.
The Daily Mail reported that the image below had sparked local villagers’ fears that the mythical Nabau, a 100-foot-long serpent, had returned. But online investigators tracked down the real photo, identical to the image that created a frenzy but without the serpent figure.
Scientific American talked to a Kansas librarian who was one of many to reveal the hoax. Nathan Chadwick explained that by using the reverse search engine TinEye, which crawls the Web for pixels that match an uploaded image, he was able to locate the original photo. According to many Web sites, the original image shows the Congo River in Africa, not the Baleh River in Borneo.
A second photo that the Daily Mail included in its story was actually found to be an image that was entered in a 2002 hoax contest.
When AOL posted an earlier story about the photos and questions over their authenticity, 55 percent of those answering a poll said they believed the images did in fact show a 100-foot-long snake.
It would appear the Borneo monster is just a myth.
Well, to be honest, AOL does gather a lot of nice copyrighted photographs in one spot of the “giant snake hoax” and of “giant creatures,” so that’s something to pay attention to, of course. The link again is 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.
Filed under Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Giant Cryptid Reptiles, Hoaxes, Megafauna