African Dinosaur Hunting: Art Deco Style

People have been seeing what they think are sauropods (or in the popular mind, dinosaurs) for a long time in Africa. More recent eyewitness accounts, of course, are still being recorded. Take cryptozoologist Adam Davies, who authored a Fortean Times article (April 2001) on his expedition. He says it all in his title, “I thought I saw a Sauropod, ” and his report is easily found online, here.

Some future summaries are in store for next year. Chad Arment mentioned in a recent blog that 2007 could be a good year for more information on dinosaur hunting in Africa. He wrote there may be…

…two separate books reviewing Mokele-mbembe expeditions coming out in 2007. Bill Gibbons is working steadily on one, which should be available from Coachwhip Publications [this is Arment’s company] during the first half of the year. A second cryptozoological author is also working on a book on the subject (but as I don’t know if that is common knowledge, I’ll just note that it’s in the works, to be published by another press)….

Bill G[ibbons] is planning to revisit Africa on another expedition in 2008. They’ve had some interesting finds on trips in the last few years, which I’m sure will be noted in the forthcoming book.

In the meantime, the archival scans of old items, showing a hint of an Art Deco influence in monster hunting, are pictured here of a few 1910s-1920s articles on living dinosaurs. These come from Crypto’s Craig Heinselman and give a hint of how extensive such media attention was back then. In many ways, there is an indication that it “felt” like a dinosaur might be found alive any day in the 1920s, in Africa or South America. Expeditions were actively looking for the prehistoric reptiles in the Roaring Twenties, sometimes with suprisingly successful results from respected research teams.

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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