Civil War Dinos

Now, within our CryptoZoo world here at Cryptomundo, similar photographs have turned up, some showing photoshopping and some not.

Take for instance, what are we to make of the above picture of soldiers wearing Civil War (or War Between the States) uniforms while an apparent pterodactyl is at their feet? Verdict: photoshopping.

Meanwhile, the following photo is not done with any manipulation of the imagery, but merely photographed, as is, and planted with a backstory on the internet, late in the 1990s.

The photograph shown here supposedly demonstrates that a cryptid was captured by a group of Civil War soldiers, circa mid-1860s. It has been circulated as the “mystery Thunderbird photo” and/or by others as 1860s soldiers with the remains of a pterodactyl.

As it turns out this photograph was a promotional tool of Orlando, Florida’s Haxan Production (producers of the movie The Blair Witch Project), to develop interest in their forthcoming sci-fi television program, “Freaky Links.” The series, first broadcast on Fox TV in 2000, involved the character “Derek Barnes,” an investigator of the unknown.

The photograph was a hoax, using Civil War reenactors and a pterodactyl created as a prop exclusively for two episodes of “Freaky Links.”

Photograph used with permission of Gregg Hale, Executive Director, Haxan Productions. Credit Fox TV.

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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