New Qatari Mystery Photo {Updated}
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 23rd, 2009
Update:
This was originally posted on April 23rd, sharing a news story circulating throughout the Arab world.
On April 24th, a reader at Cryptomundo, see in comments, identified this Qatar photo as a toy that is commercially available.
Here is the photo of that toy:
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Posted earlier:
The photograph of the strange-looking creature. (Courtesy: Al Watan)
A mysterious figure resembling a human being was sighted in the Doha Corniche’s parking lot, according to a report published in a local Arabic daily.
The report is based on the statement of an Arab expatriate lady who said she had seen the strange figure near the Oryx statue while walking in the area.
Quoting the woman, the daily said she took a picture of it in spite of being terribly frightened.
“She was very soon surrounded by a large number of people who also attested to the fact of what she had seen. But it suddenly disappeared out of their sight when they tried to go near it,” the report added, according to the Gulf Times, Thursday, April 23, 2009.
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UPDATE
Chris of Australia suggests, at least, an open-minded look at the aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis), the world’s largest nocturnal primate and a native to Madagascar.
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The image appears to be modeled on the African kalanoro, somewhat, shown above, drawn by Harry Trumbore, from The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates.
Doha – Al Corniche and Oryx, the Qatari symbol.
To put this in context, some photographs of the area (above) and descriptions (below) of Doha and Doha Corniche, edited from Wikipedia, are herewith attached.
Doha (Arabic: الدوحة, transliteration: ad-Dawḥa or ad-Dōḥa) is the capital city of Qatar. It has a population of 400,051 according to the 2005 census, and is located in the Ad Dawhah municipality on the Persian Gulf. Doha is Qatar’s largest city, with over 80% of the nation’s population residing in Doha or its surrounding suburbs, and is also the economic center of the country. Doha is home to the Education City, an area devoted to research and education. Doha was the site of the first ministerial-level meeting of the Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. The city of Doha also held the 2006 Asian Games, which was the largest Asian Games ever held.
In 1850, the city of Doha was founded under the name Al-Bida. The name “Doha” came from the Arabic ad-dawha, “the big tree.” The reference is to a prominent tree that must have stood at the site where the original fishing village arose, on the eastern coast of the Qatar peninsula.
The demography of Doha is unusual in that the majority of residents are expatriates, with Qatari nationals forming a minority. The largest portion of expatriates in Qatar are from South Asian countries, mainly India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh, with large amounts of expatriates also coming from the Levant Arab countries, North Africa, and East Asia. Doha is also home to expatriates from the United States, Canada, France, South Africa, United Kingdom and Australia as well as many other countries from all over the world.
Education has been a major focus of the Qatari government in recent years. In addition to Qatar University, established in 1973, the government has solicited other universities to establish campuses in Doha, most notably at Education City.
The Doha Corniche is a waterfront promenade extending for several kilometers along Doha Bay in the capital city of Qatar, Doha. Running parallel to the Corniche is Corniche St., a main thoroughfare which connects Doha’s emerging West Bay business district with the south of the city and Doha International Airport. Formed following extensive dredging work carried out during the late 1970s and early 1980s which reshaped Doha’s coastline, the Corniche is today a popular location among walkers, bikers and joggers.
Easily one of the most attractive areas of the city, a significant number of Doha’s landmarks are found along the Corniche. Development has increased exponentially in the last decade in the area due to its attractivness and its proximity to the sea, with dozens of skyscrapers rising towards the north of the Corniche. The Corniche begins near the newly constructed Museum of Islamic Art, and ends at the Sheraton Park near the distinctive pyramid-shaped Sheraton Hotel.
Doha Corniche.
News item courtesy of Cryptomundo correspondent D.G.’s mother in Qatar.
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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.
I find myself often taking jokes at face value, and am frequently the one person in the group to which sarcasm/subtle humor goes over their head.
I’m not sure whether to treat this picture seriously or not. So, I’ll go ahead with my serious comment:
It’s obviously fake. Just looking at the odd eyes and awkward left hand give it away. It’s photoshopped, and whoever did it has done a very amateurish job that will only likely fool the most blind of us.
If this is a humorous posting, and Loren of course knows it’s fake, then I do find it amusing. It looks sort of like my Chihuahua.
I’ll be going to Qatar in June to visit my mother so I’ll let you know if I find anything!!
Looks like one of Jim Henson’s muppets from the David Bowie movie “Laberynth”
Reminds me of the “chupacabra” photo out there that is kind of blury and looks like a toy chupa. I seriously hope this is a joke, Im not one to autmatically start dismissing photos but that is obviosuly a fake and a poor one at that
I would dearly love for that photo to be real. After all, it really *is* a cool looking creature.
Sadly, in this, the age of easily-faked photographs, I’d be willing to bet my old brown fedora it ain’t real.
Sigh . . .
I was not going to waste any of my poor typing skills on this one but I couldn’t resist.
That’s where my dogs’ favorite chew toy went!
I think its a touch up of the ‘alien in a cave’ picture. It’s a display in some cave for tourists somewhere. I’ll try and find it.
My first impressions are that it’s a small toy laying on an uneven concrete floor. It doesn’t even seem to have a lower body.
Regarding the image’s back story, I’d be interested in finding out whether the ‘large number of people’ who apparently saw the creature actually managed to get some more footage of it.
it looks really small, inches maybe…….the creature that is. hehe. giggity.
That ‘creature’ is very reminiscent of those depicted in a theme park in the UK that I believe is centered around the Cheddar Caves. They have all kinds of fanciful and slightly scary-looking critters carved into the walls of the caves. One of the more famous photos circulated of a ‘chupacabras’ also came from there….
Anyone who might be searching for sea serpents or bigfoot is probably rather discouraged to learn that a cryptid can remain elusive in an open paved area like that.
It’s a Muppet.
Mystery solved. =D
Hahahaha…. Oh no! Run, the claymation goblin is after you!!!!
This looks a little bit like a photoshopped pic of an Aye-aye especially the eye color and strange hand but I must say it also looks a little bit like Gmork from the movie The never ending story .
No really… I follow from time to time this blog, thanks to a good friend a cryptozoologist in Italy. I have seen clear and bad fakes commented and discussed as “possible discoveries”; but this is a bit too far even for my sense of humor. While I am very happy to believe that pretty much everything is possible, this goes beyond even the most optimist view of the world of hidden animals. Next time I would suggest to post the picture of a warhammer miniature, possibly better sculpted and painted than this one, and start a topic about the possible existance of skavens and the warpstone.
Seriously, these are exactly the kind of things cryptozoology needs LESS.
Dear normanno and others of a like mind.
Please note that to “kill the messenger” defeats the purpose of this blog. I post news, views, new photos, and such here so you can take them or leave them, but please, do realize this is out there. I am merely communicating that fact.
I find it oppressive, sometimes, to come down too heavily on a news report and photograph like this without a brief period of “airing it out.”
I also see the importance of being aware of non-European and non-American news and opinions, as much as possible.
Do consider, I gave a hint of what I thought, but I wanted to leave room for you all to have your own reactions – as well as for the great investigators who read about such things to find the definitive answer (as did occur – see update).
I think it’s rather Fiji Mermaidesque, but who knows? I would just like to know why it seems to be throwing it’s self in front of the camera. Sure does look cool.
Actually I appreciate seeing photos like this, Loren. These things sometimes end up in pseudo-cryptozoological books as fact.
As far as this creature goes, however, I’m guessing that somewhere on the beast are words from another dimension which, when translated, would read: “Made in China”
Hedgehog
I’ve seen something like that before.
It was a natural baby animal from a few years back that was in some kind of nature magazine that just had it’s bath. I think it was a raccoon.
Whether or not this image is a real photo or faked, people need to realize that nature spirits, elementals, demons, angels, or similar types of spiritual/thoughtform entities DO exist. They fall out of our typical material concept of reality (unless you’re spiritually oriented such as a Wiccan, Shaman etc.) Beings such as gnomes, elves, faeries, brownies, trolls, imps, part astral/etheric entities that actually do exist, and capable of manifestation within our reality perhaps do to portals or thinning of viels etc. The sceptical scientific type who have a hard time dealing with the concept of 3rd density shockers such as ceolecanth won’t even consider such nonlocal fauna and laugh it away. as it is just too much of a threat to their narrow view of conceptual reality (paradygm). In the meantime, you might ponder who’s really having the last laugh.
=)
Ok, so where are the identities and testimonials of the large group of people who also saw it? Case closed.
A new image of an aye-aye has been added, via an update, to the main body of the posting.
Hey! There he is! That’s a brother of Werefetus McScarums. You can visit Werefetus here.
that aye aye looks very close to those images.
I tend to agree with others—it does look photoshopped—although one can never know.
I think the “aye-aye” theory looks promising and needs to be investigated further. I agree that fairies and related beings do exist, though. 🙂
The aye-aye is a possibility, but the ears don’t quite match up, the eyes look photoshopped, and that thing looks like it’s grinning.
It may be just a model.
@ twas brillig: I believe in thoughtforms, and that ain’t no thoughtform. It’s clearly photoshopped, and poorly done at that.
@ Loren: I didn’t mean to shoot the messenger, if that’s what it looked like I was doing. I know you post pics and stuff here for our benefit, whether you believe them to be authentic or not. I just wasn’t sure whether you were looking for a serious discussion of its authenticity or not.
Hey guys… Long time reader, but first time posting… while they photos looks extremely like the Aye-Aye, it is not the Aye-Aye, simply because the Aye-Aye is famous for its extremely long index fingers which it uses to poke around in tree holes searching for bugs. While the face maybe an Aye-Aye, the hands have defiantly been tampered with on Photoshop, and then we must ask the question, why tamper with a photo if your not hiding anything, just my piece thanks for listening.
This photo has been floating around the Middle East for at least 15 years. I know because 15 years ago I was working as an English teacher in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Some students insisted that a “jinn” had been phtographed in a cave in the desert outside of the city, and their proof was this very same photo.
A small point…
If we deal with a clear photo of a small cryptid and the image doesn’t look quite real, it looks fake or toylike, I suggest that we should not automatically discount it on that basis. I have seen various creatures at the zoo or reptile house that don’t seem real. Once I saw a newborn squirrel on the sidewalk and mistook it for a child’s plastic toy, until it moved.
I’m quite sure I saw this very same photo a few years ago.
Not too long ago I threw out a toy that looked just like that…actually I think that’s it, have you been dumpster diving lately? I remember buying it at the dollar store here in Washington. I know for a fact that toy’s the same. It’s suppose to be a toy of a werewolf and it’s one of those stretchy, flexible toys that are squishy, and sticky and smell like bad plastic. In the picture, the toy looks like its torso-less but I remember that it has green pants on, and you can tell that the eyes are definitely painted on. Sorry about my poor typing skills.
Comments are closed on this thread.
See new update here.