New Qatari Mystery Photo {Updated}

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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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