July 3, 2007
Here, below, is the one photograph that has been released, thusfar, of the Maine Mystery Cat, taken from a homeowner’s backyard in Sidney, Maine.
The photo is from a digital camera, and the pixels give this felid a less than sharp configuration. But as you can see from reading the past blogs on this matter, the downloading of the camera, from the testimony of the photo lab owner, speaks well for this image to have not been Photoshopped.
But that has not stopped others from using various techniques to manipulate this image.
While no one seems to have seen a tail on this photographed cat, yet, that doesn’t mean others haven’t tried to make their own tale of this picture.
In terms of the created fakes, first there is this one, being passed around the internet, of a tiger put in place of the Mystery Cat in the original image. Additionally, so the weak debunking goes, this pic is being presented as the “source” of the original. In other words, whether for sinister or humorous reasons, someone created a hoax in an attempt to undermine the first Sidney Mystery Cat image by saying the tiger was there first. Sorry, but the Photoshop fogginess is clearly visible around the superimposed tiger.
Next is a fake produced to try to make an analytic point.
Terry Shumaker sent this one to me, with this note: “Just for your enjoyment, I Photoshopped a photo of a mountain lion I took in Arizona into the Maine original. To the left of the Maine cat I tried to reduce and degrade the image to match the original as closely as possible. The image to the right is the same photo, just reduced to scale. Please judge for yourself. For the record, I think the Maine photo is genuine. But my part of it is fake. Fake, fake, fake! The animal I photographed is not in the Maine woods; it is in captivity in Arizona.
I may have more factual info soon. In the meantime, I thought you would enjoy the above for more compare and contrast comments.
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 Alien Big Cats, Artifacts, Breaking News, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Hoaxes, Mystery Cats, Out of Place, Photos, Pop Culture