New Guinea – More Species Than Meet the Eye Part I

There has been a fair bit of news on Cryptomundo about the amazing discovery of a myriad new animals in the wilds of New Guinea. This is fascinating stuff and it just blows me away that there could be so many new species found. One of these days I am going to get my expedition gear together and join some fellow explorer friends of mine and head for the remote islands of Papua New Guinea, but not necessarily in search of those types of animals.

You see New Guinea is a veritable treasure trove of cryptid animals and it has been a longstanding desire of mine to head out for those parts in search of them. Some of these mystery animals have actually turned out to be known animals that locals ascribed different names to. The most notorious of these is the Ri. Back in 1979, Roy Wagner was on the island of New Ireland studying the lives of an indigenous people known as the Barok. He heard from them tales of a creature that appeared ‘mermaid-like’ and was known locally as the Ri. Wagner saw it himself on one occasion and that really whet his appetite for discovery.

He organized a search party in 1983, which also included Richard Greenwell of the International Scoiety of Cryptozoology, and as luck would have it they saw something swimming on the surface at Nokon Bay on July 5. They took several pictures of the animal which was just above the surface of the sea. The pictures were inconclusive but those of one Thomas Williams of the Ecosophical Research Association taken in 1985 were as clear as could be.

On February 10 that year, a Ri was spotted and chase given. Cameras were readied, including an underwater unit. Pictures of the Ri were taken and form surface and subsurface and the great mystery of the Ri was solved. It was your common, garden-variety, everyday dugong.

John Kirk About John Kirk
One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.

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