Posts tagged
‘cryptozoology’

The Suffolk Sea Monster A strange Suffolk sea monster is shown by one of the fishermen who was injured while capturing it.

Silas Told and the Devil-Fish A giant devil-fish ominously follows a sailing ship as a token of death for the Captain.

Notes on American Dragons Three accounts of dragons in Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio.

Creature Feature: The Mexican Mine Monster A missionary who lived for years in Mexico tells of a terrifying encounter with something giant and snake-like in a Guerrero mine.

An engaging feature of the papers of the past is the “what-is-it.” This is a monster, sometimes of plausible animal appearance and behavior; sometimes an alien creature seemingly hybridized from a variety of species. Today we look at a few of these colorful “what is its.”

In 1861, on a slow-news day, a journalist scribbled a story about a wildman. Suddenly people began reporting encounters with the tall, hairy creature. Was it a hermit, a wendigo, a lunatic, an idiot, or a true monster?

Does the Sea Serpent Really Look Like an Art Nouveau Oar-fish? With Labor Day upon us, we are almost at the end of the Silly Season when sea serpent stories were standard newspaper fare. Here’s a selection of vintage–and most imaginative–depictions of sea serpents.

A passage from Holinshed’s Chronicles –Shakespeare’s inspiration for the plot of Macbeth–tells of what seems to be a pack of wildmen in Norway.

A monster scoop of a story on a phantom attacker.