Messing: The Giant

The San Francisco Giants are on their way to the World Series. Think about their name for a minute. The San Francisco Giants (1958–present) use to be the New York Giants (1885–1957), and the name “Giants” given to 19th century baseball teams had its origins on the East Coast, in tales of True Giants from the native peoples of the area. One such representation of a True Giant has turned up anew, in an image sent along to Cryptomundo.

Photographic evidence of a previously unknown exhibit of an oversized hairy hominoid has been discovered for the East Coast.

Bushkill, Pennsylvania’s Pocono Indian Museum has an unusual display of a giant
wildman named Messing of the Delaware Valley. The Lenape People regarded the Giant as a protector of the forest.

The Lenape, at the time the Europeans landed in America, lived in the area called Lenapehoking, roughly the region around and between the Delaware and lower Hudson Rivers. This encompassed what are now known as the U.S. state of New Jersey; eastern Pennsylvania around the Delaware and Lehigh valleys; the north shore of Delaware; and southeastern New York, particularly the lower Hudson Valley and Upper New York Bay.

Brian Rathjen, Editor of Backroads Motorcycle TourMagazine, has forwarded a photograph of that exhibition for sharing at Cryptomundo. We appreciate viewing this.

For more on the mysteries of New Jersey, please read Monsters of New Jersey by Loren Coleman and Bruce G. Hallenbeck, published on September 1, 2010.

For more on giants, look for and read the forthcoming book by Mark A. Hall and Loren Coleman, True Giants: Myth, Legend, Folklore, and Fact, from Anomalist Books, due out before December 2010.

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.

Email • Facebook • Twitter •