November 25, 2008
A big snake on a hiking path in San Gimignano, Italy. Contemporary photo, credit Travelpod.
The Irish Times for November 24, 2008, shares a tidbit from their archives, dated December 28, 1933. The article entitled “Italy’s ‘Loch Ness Monster,” actually shows the media impact of the-then beginning explosion of international interest in the new Loch Ness Monster reports.
It reads:
Italy’s “Loch Ness monster,” which appeared in the Pantano Marshes, near Syracuse, Sicily, and struck a man dumb with fright for three months, has been lured out of its hiding place by music.
The “monster” turns out to be a snake, possibly between 15 and 20ft long of a kind not previously known in Italy. An expert says it may be 100 years old.
An armed expedition of 10 men set out into the marshes, preceded by a professional snake-charmer playing his musical instrument. After two hours the party found the “monster.”
One of the men said later: “About 50 feet from us was a huge serpent-like creature, bigger than anything we had expected. Two gleaming eyes glared angrily at us out of a rather crushed-looking head. Its tail beat the ground in fury and its body quivered. Two of us fired at it with both barrels, but it dropped down and quickly slithered into the undergrowth. We shall certainly go out for it again.”
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 Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Giant Cryptid Reptiles, Loch Ness Monster, Year In Review
