Dinosaurs in the Amazon?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 17th, 2012
The Canadian creationist Vance Nelson has posted a new video telling of his recent discovery of a 5000 year B.P. pictograph of an alleged dinosaur being hunted by humans in the Amazon in recent times.
YouTube entry notes: “On May 1, 2012, Vance Nelson and Harry Nibourg were on site in the Amazon Rainforest documenting authentic pictographs said by secular archaeologists to be over 5,000 years old. Amazingly, one of the pictographs showed nine warriors hunting what appears to be a dinosaur. Did dinosaurs live recently in the Amazon? The secular archaeologist enlisted to help them believes the dinosaurs in this region escaped extinction and lived with people.”
(Thanks to Bill Gibbons.)
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.
Interesting image. Looking at it, I think it could also be a giant tortoise, but with the Galapagos so far away, that’s almost as unlikely.
Also the theory of evolution doesn’t ‘say that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago’, mainstream science does.
Very cool. I saw some other videos on youtube that show a Stegasaurus on some temple walls in Thailand. Some may say this specific one in the amazon is merely a depiction of an elephant. People weren’t the best artist back in the day. 😉
But, Dr. Kaco, how does one explain an elephant in the Amazon?
Also, some things have a way of coming back and recycling themselves. I first wrote about the carved temple “Stegosaur in Cambodia?” here at Cryptomundo on February 5th, 2006. LOL.
Great post! That drawing is awesome and gives such perspective of the creature with nine hunters. It also suggests the animal was on land when they hunted it.
“Off camera” that is just hear-say. Since doesn’t state it on camera and it the narrator saying he did say it doesn’t prove anything. As well nowhere in the bible does it mention dinosaurs and humans lived together. Am not saying they didn’t but the word dinosaur isn’t mentioned anywhere in the bible.
People will always believe what they want to believe, no matter if the facts are slapping them in the face. A pictograph on a stone wall doesn’t prove anything beyond they recorded something they saw, whether it is a dinosaur or it is just an animal that hasn’t been discovered yet.
Looking at the video I would use some caution at the authenticity of these pictographs. The rock face looks to be painted by a red pigment of some sort. If these were in the back of cave where the environment would allow preservation of such pigments it would make sense. For example, early human painting is preserved at Chauvet Cave in France. However, these are open to the outside air, humidity, and direct sunlight, all of which will attack pigments. Some people do not realize that the classical marble sculptures and buildings of Greece and Rome where all painted and not the stark white we now commonly associate with such structures and art. Those pigments deteriorated well before their 2-3000 year old age today.
Actually the first time I read about the Ankgor temple stegosaur depiction was back around 1999 in a book called Ancient Angkor written by Michael Freeman. I still have a copy of it in my collection. Should pick yourself up one, is a very good book about the history of temples there.
Forgive me if I am mistaken, but at the time the King James translation was commissioned, I am not sure the word Dinosaur even existed.
@Cryptid,
It is VERY well known that the bible speaks of a creature known as behemoth in Job 40:15-24.
Here is a drawing that was deleted from wikipedia:
@OrlokSubedei,
There are lots of red petroglyphs, an aging discussion involves the physics of whatever (unknown) technique or material was used, and maybe that art isn’t quite as old but perhaps even more telling of recent past.
While I think such a thing is possible, these don’t look like petroglyphs which I have seen in North America. They seem ‘new’ somehow, not weathered.
What he is calling the tail is the leg of the hunter in the rear.
Sauropod tails didn’t look anything like that. Could it be a terror bird or some other large bird? Is what looks like front legs another hunter?
Very Very interesting. The long necked creature bears some similarity to some (I repeat: some) depictions at Tiahuanaco (spelled right?) which have been concluded by some researchers as Toxodon (some of these depictions, like the creature in the pictogram, show a dinosaurian long neck, despite the fact that Toxodons where hippo-like grassland Mammals) or Puma (even harder to believe, but some scholars state these depictions where stylized try-to-grasp-some-quality-of-the-beast depictions of well known animals. Odd? Confusing?).
This one is different: being older than Tiahuanaco (mainstream Academia concludes that Peruvian city was built just over 2000 years ago, not the 15-18,000 years ago cited by some early scholars) of a different, tribal culture, and showing a bonafide tail (if you look closely at the 2:56 mark in the film, the theory that the tail is nothing more than the leg of one of the hunters behind the beast is proven wrong. The so-called Toxodon depictions show no giant tails), this seems to be far more than some modern animal or Toxodon. Is it a Dinosaur? Could be, or could be an animal that is unrelated to sauropods but developed a similar body plan due to similar environmental pressures (a phenomena called Convergent Evolution, which has brought about saber-toothed marsupial “cats” and rhinos which share a strikingly similar body plan to ceratopsian dinosaurs like Torosaurus and Triceratops).
Could whatever inspired that cave painting still exist in that region? Hard to totally dismiss, considering that the Amazon Jungle is far from being a place you want to spend the night camping in (Jaguars, Toothpick fish and other nasty fishes of the Amazon, Anacondas, River-wolf Giant Otters, and Possibly Colossal Anacondas).
But the other question that needs to be asked: are the pictograms really authentic?
Now as for the remark that the theory of evolution teaches that Dinosaurs died out 65 Million Years ago: rebo429 correctly notes that mainstream natural history, not the theory of evolution itself, states that Dinosaurs died out 65 Million years ago. However some young earth creationists will lump mainstream geology, cosmology, and other sciences into “evolution”, and call mainstream scientists “evolutionists”. I have not visited the website where this film came from but I could hazard a guess that they are a young earth creationist organization (Young earth creationists, for those who’ve never heard of them believe that the earth is only 6,000-12,000 years old, or a squinch older. They reject not only Darwin’s theory of evolution but also mainstream geology and many other sciences. I was once convinced by their teachings and arguments in the past, but not any more.)
If this proves to be YEC (young Earth Creationism), then many mainstream scholars who would have been otherwise interested in the finding, will most likely ignore it. Why? Would you give credence to people who found pictograms in a cave on an island near the north pole if the people who “discovered” it turned out to be hollow earth theorists? Would you find a text supposedly by Christopher Columbus, detailing a confession that he hoaxed the trip to the new world, if those who “found” the text where flat-earthers (suspicion should be raised midway through that sentence!)?
Just as I thought:
Read the review by Brian Thomas, a person who worked for ICR, Institute for Creation Research. I believe it was started by Henris Morris, one of the original masters of YEC. It’s still one of the biggest YEC think tanks today.
Also look at this link, and notice the review written by one Dr. Gary Parker, who claims to have taught at ICR and AIG, Answers In Genesis, another big YEC Think Tank that runs the famous, or infamous, depending on your differing religious or even on religious views, YEC museum, located in Kentucky.
Whomever brought forth the information has no affect on the actual information; prejudices exist in the holder.
It is also worth noting that Columbus was on the outside of ‘mainstream’.
Dinosaur? No. If the “tail” is actually a hunter, it definitely looks more like a large bird in my opinion. Either an Emu, Ostrich or another large bird. You can see the feet of the “dinosaur” look more like bird feet than anything else, and I think the drawing is just a rough interpretation of what the emu would look like. This is MUCH more plausible than a random dinosaur in the Amazon. Also – the deep colors of the paintings do look too “new” as others have pointed out, and I have to agree. This could have been painted at any time.
Is it me or do the back legs look considerably larger then the back legs?
(2:55 has the clearest shot)
Personally I find it more likely the image is supposed to be a giant sloth, Mapinguari reported to still live in the area (amazon basin). Admittedly the neck is too long (the tail would look long if its covered in fur).
erm, watn6789
“Here is a drawing that was deleted from wikipedia”
managing to get something posted on wikipedia for a little while before an ed can review and (I think very properly in this case) delete, doesn’t give it any added weight or authenticity
wrt the pictographs – the YEC links that have been brought out, the high colouring of the paint, and the fact that I’ve not seen any academic or other suitable authority quoted in support of the supposed age, does make me doubtful
I think it’s important to verify the authenticity of these “ancient pictographs”. There have been numerous examples of hoaxes committed by opportunists using pictographs and establishing them as evidence without having lead archaeologists and anthropologists extensively research and document these sites.
When I read the note that Van Nelson was a creationist it automatically threw up a red flag.
I think it’s very interesting!! But seeing the expediton is paid for by a creationists supportive organization it goes from excited to hmmm.. Everything where in the end the church benefits i question!
Love this discovery. Thanks for all your info Loren. I have been reading your books for years. I live in East Texas and close to many Bigfoot sightings. Maybe one day the truth will be known.
Well, ya know?, “pictographs” can be done by modern people.
It would be interesting to apply “dstretch” (google it) image processing to the pictograph.
There may be more than one glyph over another and differences in the time of creation (like additions…) may also show up as well as more detail.
This topic sure did stir the pot! Wow! Very cool. And Loren, I did not know you had posted about that Stegasarus back in ’06….LOL too funny. See, you were the first! Not some youtube crazy person ;p