15 Cadborosauruses? Maybe a few less.
Posted by: John Kirk on August 16th, 2010
My erstwhile colleague Loren Coleman posted about the television program that is said to contain footage of 15 Cadborosauruses. This was in response to comments about the footage made by my good friend and colleague Jason Walton.
So as to clarify things and end speculation, allow me to tell the readership about this footage. I have seen it and examined it repeatedly for three hours in May last year and am satisfied that what is in the footage is not a known animal.
The footage was obtained by a Washington state fishing boat captain (his name is known to myself and other cryptozoological investigators who have looked at the footage) who fishes in Alaskan waters in the summer. He and his two sons were on the deck of their boat when they noticed a herd of dark coloured creatures with serrated backs being chased down a channel by a pod of beluga whales. They were stunned to see these animals as they resembled no known animal they had ever seen in their years of fishing.
One of the sons had the presence of mind to go below deck and grab a video camera to film the spectacle before them. When he returned to the deck the creatures – and there are between ten to fifteen of them including juveniles – had reversed direction and were bearing back up the channel to open water with the belugas in hot pursuit. A fair amount of this action is caught on videotape.
As the creatures pull level with the boat one is able to see two larger ones protecting what looks like a juvenile from the pursuing belugas. The serrated backs are clearly visible at times. Then one the creatures turns to look in the general direction of the camera and I must say I was stunned because it looked like a living breathing version of the famed Naden Harbour carcass obtained in 1937.
I had the opportunity to examine the footage in its raw state and also the isolations, close-ups and slow motion versions for three hours straight. Prior to my examination of the contents of the footage, my colleague Dr. Paul H. Leblond, FRSC, also spent hours examining the footage. I arrived an hour after Dr. Leblond and so had no contact with him and no discussion before I saw the footage.
That evening Paul and I exchanged emails. I wanted to hear his impressions of what he had seen and I was not at all surprised that he had noticed the same features of the creatures I had noted and which had convinced me that this was an unknown creature and very like the north Pacific Megaserpent known as Cadborosaurus. In fact Paul actually described the head of the creature that looked in the direction of the camera as being very akin to the Naden Harbour carcass.
The owner of the footage is not a scientist, but he was acutely aware of the monetary value of the footage that he and his sons had obtained. Paul and I asked that he allow the film to be further studied, but he felt that selling it to a television company would allow him to have better magnifications and slow mo done so that the footage could be better viewed. He sold the footage to the producers of a TV program many readers will be familiar with. So as not to steal their thunder, I will refrain from saying what program it is until the producers make their announcement. At that time I will gladly share the airdate and time with the readers of Cryptomundo.
I can fairly confidently say that readers will find this footage fascinating and I hope that the producers of the program the creatures will be seen in, will have used all their electronic tools to show clearly the remarkable animals that the Washington state boat skipper and his sons have captured.
If these are whales, moose, otters or other known creatures then they are subtypes that no one has ever seen before. I do not think that they are a known animal and I look forward to readers’ comments after they have seen the footage.
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.
I am very much looking forward to this. Cryptozoology has been made to look ridiculous with frozen gorilla suits and sadly demented old men calling in to radio shows about families of cryptids in their back yards. If this footage is as good as you are describing it, and if it is presented in a non-sensationalistic manner that would only serve to create more doubts, it will be truly remarkable.
PLEASE not Fox News, PLEASE not Fox News, PLEASE not Fox News…
Can’t wait for the video footage!
I wonder who bought the rights to the video and how much they were offered. I am guessing a cable network like the Discovery Channel, but that’s just a guess.
I hope the video is the real thing and not some blobsquatch in seaweed but the article makes the footage sound very good, so I will be waiting!
Yeah especially not Shep Smith…He proclaimed that bigfoot was invented by that nut with the fake wooden feet. And that his legend died with him. What a sap.
Well, for all you fox news haters:
Poll: Fox most trusted name in news
PLEASE not ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ on TLC, PLEASE not ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ on TLC, PLEASE not ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ on TLC…
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that this certain show is on the History Channel, and has the word Hunters in it’s name somewhere.
Be that as it may I do look forward to seeing this, if it’s truly as life changing as all that. However, I highly doubt that it is, or else we would have seen it by now. Whenever someone stands to gain something from a video I begin to suspect foul play.
So all there is to do now is wait and hope.
If you can’t tell if there are 10 or 15 of these supposed creatures, how are we supposed to take the rest of the observations seriously?
Large creatures with serrated backs swimming in an estuary.
White Sturgeon.
Next challenge?
I think sometimes we tend to look down wrongly on people who sell their footage, this guy and his sons are fishermen and most of the time doesn’t pay that well and is dependent on the catch so it is only logically that he would want to make some extra money. The majority of the world including us don’t have much money, so who here wouldn’t say they would not be tempted to make some money if they had footage; myself training to be a scientist would as I’m only human, though quickly I would shake it off for science lol.
With you and Dr. Paul LeBlond in on the footage I’ve got a lot more confidence in what was seen and shot on film.
I’m going through my own internal checklists, so I am assuming the footage has been raked over to make sure it’s not been tampered with or faked. 🙂
This is really exciting. Hats off to the people who had the presence of mind to take footage.
To Greg102 who seems to trust Fox News, perhaps a quote from the very article he links to would be in order here – pay attention to the last sentence please!
“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said PPP President Dean Debnam in his analysis of the poll. “But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”
Erstwhile is a word referring to “In the past; at a former time; formerly.”
John Kirk demonstrates that we are hardly former colleagues, as this posting of his certainly is a welcome and current overview of this mysterious footage.
So, what cable channel is it going to be on? Fox? SyFy? History? Animal Planet? Travel? Chill? TNT? Food? Which one?
Well if its that clear to what is being shown on the footage then most likely it will be a Major news corp. But if they went to places like History Channel or SYFY then most likely there going to make some new crypt show or dumb it down. So skeptics can just chew it up. Now, i dont have a problem with skeptics. I believe in nature people fear first then analyze second. thats just natural. But being an A__H_le about things is not a skeptic. I really hope that the world or the Amercican public has the chance to see this. It would be awesome to something like this. Funny, lately alot of Lake serpent stuff on here. Someone conditioning the minds of the readers to get to ready for something BIG?! Who knows.. Bring the video out guys. We want to see.
I trust Fox more than the other networks, but when it comes to cryptids, they lose all objectivity and become giggling nerds just like the rest.
Pity “Current Affair” isn’t still a viable media outlet. Manitoba footage redux, anyone? Though in a perfect world, the boat skipper and his sons would have given exclusive footage rights to Dr. Franklin Ruehl PhD to be viewed and discussed on his “Mysteries From Beyond The Other Dominion” cable access show. At least he’d treat it with a reasonable degree of respect from start to finish.
🙂
I fully expect to see this on “Destination Truth” as “Monsterquest”, which would have been the logical choice, was canceled by the clueless people at the History Channel. By the way, I haven’t watched a single program on the History Channel since they took off “Monsterquest”.
It will be History or SyFy network who breaks this video. It seems that lately that the cryptid shows have been doing well for these channels. They know where their bread is buttered.
As for which network to trust it’s up to the individual to trust their gut on whether things are fair and balanced. With the recent admission that there are indeed “talking points” distributed by a left wing news commentary think group to over 500 media outlets every morning I find it laughable that FOX has become such a lightning rod for the “tolerant left”. What’s scary is that I know college students that think that John Stewart is giving them actual news.
If this were genuine and reputable, it would have appeared already. As it is, if this ever appears it will probably be as fodder for one of the cable shows aimed at 20-year-old basement dwellers. Watch and see: there is absolutely nothing to any of this.
Corporate media serves only one master: the financial bottom line. This means MSNBC, Fox, CNN et al, not to mention all the “infotainment” outlets that masquerade as legit news channels. Despite the proclamations of our Conservative friends in here, there is a prevalence of right-leaning media in this country (especially on the talk radio front) and it’s a safe assertion that TRULY fair and balanced television journalism went the way of Morrow and Cronkite. Fox is unabashedly the talking point cheering squad for the Right Wing Conservative Agenda, and the closest thing they have by way of a counterpart would be the one-two punch of Daily Show and Colbert Report. The irony of this is that the last two I mentioned aren’t even legit news outlets, which should tell you all you need to know about Fox.
So how does this relate to the upcoming caddy footage? Simple. There are no more legit news programs in this country (except perhaps for something you may find on PBS at odd hours) which is why we have no choice to hope whoever has obtained the footage is someone who will treat it fairly and with an open mind. That is, if the footage is even remotely as awesome as we’ve been hearing it is.
One last thing: if you choose to get your news from sources who are content to keep you in your little bubble of comfort by telling you exactly what you want to hear, reaffirming your same old fears and appealing to your sense of theological patriotism, then you’re doing yourself a grave disservice. Seek you own answers. Look outside your bubble. Talk to those with differing opinions. And once the veil of ignorance has been lifted and you realize that the world at large is quite different than the idiot box dittoheads have been describing, you will finally have enlightenment.
Sasquatch has known this for ages. Time for the rest of us to catch up.
😀
my guess is discovery channel. they had a great caddy cryptid show a few years back where a scientist claims she found echo location in the lake. As far as fox news is concerned i just put the link up to stir up all the left wingers lol.
“Erstwhile”
Yeah, I feel it was just an incorrect usage of the word here as the post reads nothing like ‘Former’. Perhaps JK meant ‘esteemed collegue’ which is not an unusual misuse of the word.
I found an apropos article on this here which states in part;
“I assumed that “my erstwhile colleague” (the phrase I usually heard the word in) meant “my esteemed colleague,” but it really means “my former colleague.” I wasn’t alone in this misunderstanding; many people misuse this word.”
Ah Google, I thank ye much.
Having said that, I have no quarrel with someone who sells their video or rights to data if it is done and used appropriately. Time will tell as tension mounts as to who and how it will be presented. When times are tough decisions are tough too. At least it didn’t go to the “Enquirer” or (gasp!) some overnight radio show with questionable motives haha.
Excellent info in these posts and comments.
Jason P wrote:
That’s a bit out of line. He said between 10 and 15. It’s perfectly normal to have a rough approximation without having a spot on actual figure. Anybody who has ever watched a school of dolphins or pod of orcas on the surface will know you can’t always make a precise total tally.
Between 10 and 15 sounds like a perfectly reasonable observation to me.
Sounds like Sturgeon.
If John Kirk described the film accurately, then sturgeon don’t work as a solution. Reports of individual creatures from lakes and offshore waters are certainly, in some cases, traceable to sturgeon. The Lake Iliamna, AK, creatures are likely an undocumented population of sturgeon. But adult white sturgeon don’t school, and certainly do not protect swimming juveniles from a threat. (There is, by the way, one, but only one, record of a white sturgeon from Bristol Bay, in an estuary of which this film was taken.)
I have no comment about the footage but I do have a comment about the sturgeon theory. We have two professional fishermen that live and work on the waters of the Pacific Northwest and a PHD holder that describes what they saw in the footage as a possible new species. So what you are trying to tell us all is neither the professional fishermen nor the phd scientist has ever seen a white sturgeon? Hmmm, if the fisherman read the “sturgeon” comments, I have a sneaky suspicion the two men would love to show you their favorite white sturgeon fishing hole personally.
whiteriverfisherman –
We have three fishermen who want to maximise the money from their video and brief comments from two investigators who believe in monsters, were allowed to watch the video 15 months ago and are probably featured in the tv show.
Cadborosaurus, as yet not proven to exist, is not depicted as having a serrated back. Sturgeon on the other hand are well known in Bristol Bay.
My money remains on sturgeon being the main players, but not necessarily the only ones. Your attributed suspicions about the “two men” are not relevant.
When I looked specifically into the question of white sturgeon in the area in conncetion with the Lake Iliamna mystery, contacting a sturgeon expert and a salmon biologist at Lake Iliamna, as well as web searches, yielded only one report of a white sturgeon caught in Bristol Bay. So much depends on the film. If John Kirk is right in his statement that it shows a school of animals on the surface, that would be unprecedented for sturgeon. Nor can I find any record of beluga eating sturgeon, although one presumes small ones could be on the menu. A pod of belugas chasing a group of large sturgeon at the surface would be so bizarre it’s hard to think of as a possibility. We all want to speculate, but let’s see what the film shows.
Matt, your points are well thought out.
I suggested sturgeon because I couldn’t think of any other locally found creatures with “serrated backs”. Poster “ILovesnakes” has pointed out that some turtle species have rows of serrations. If one were to combine unusual elevated sea temperatures or currents, out of place turtles become candidates. Also, John Kirk didn’t say how many serrations he saw.
We – I at least – failed to spot the missing information on the sizes of the unidentified creatures. Jason Walton used the term Caddy in the title of his opening thread, and that conjures an image of something the size of the 3 metre Naden Harbor moose, but there is no actual estimate of size for the currently discussed creatures.
John Kirk refers to a “school” of creatures, but perhaps we are inferring some sort of family relationship where none exists. Would the word “group” be equally appropriate? Cetaceans (like humans) hunt and kill other creatures that they have no intention of eating, so there is no reason yet to assume that the unidentified creatures in this footage are a/ all the same species, b/ socially related, or c/ dinner guests.
In writing this, I was reminded that there are many different approaches to animal mysteries; Messrs Walton & Kirk are starting from an assumption that Cadborosaurus exists and that here is an encounter with a “herd” of them 2500 kilometres from home, while others like myself try to identify unusual events using what I have in the toolbox of zoology.
To each, his own.
“A pod of belugas chasing a group of large sturgeon at the surface would be so bizarre it’s hard to think of as a possibility.”
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that a sea monster is inarguably at LEAST as bizarre a thing to see. 🙂 I’m thinking of Mr. Davies who argued with myself and others on Cryptomundo that it was unthinkable that orangutans could be a few hundred miles from where it’s believed their range extends to explain his team’s orang pendek sighting. A bipedal non-human primate unknown to man was obviously the more likely explanation. 🙂 Now the initial DNA evidence testing is suggesting something very akin to an orangutan.