© M. Keaton, 1999

Cryptozoology:

CZ is the study of the unknown animal, discovered and studied based on the accounts of witnesses and the minimal physical evidence left behind.

The Coelacanth, considered extinct for millions of years, was rediscovered in 1938.

The Megamouth shark, one of the largest and most widely-distribute species of shark, remained unknown to humanity until 1976.

Bahamonde’s Beaked shale, the eighth species of whale discovered in this century, was not formally described until 1996.

Jerdon’s Courser, considered extinct since 1900 was rediscovered in 1986.

Gilbert’s Potoroo, a species of rat kangaroo, has been considered extinct since 1969 was rediscovered in 1994.

Cryptozoology (Lake Monsters):

The first well documented modern report of a lake monster was April 14, 1933 at Loch Ness, Scotland. Scotland 1933, similar creatures have been reported on six continents, turning the Lake Monster into one of the principal quarries of CZ. The most dramatic photo-graphic evidence of a Lake Monster may be this photograph taken by Sandra Mansi in July 1977 at Lake Champlain. As yet, this photograph has not been proven to be a hoax and remains fiercely debated. Despite the intrinsic deficiencies in the methodology, both Loch Ness and Lake Champlain have yielded sonar images which may indicate the presence of a large sub-marine life form. Clouding the investigation are the inevitable frauds such as this photograph taken by Kenneth Wilson in 1934 which is actually a plastic and wood model photographed at close range. Although there are several theories as to the identity of the Lake Monsters, there are three leading Cryptozoological possibilities. The all-time favorite theory is that of surviving Plesiosaurs escaping extinction in the larger and deeper inland lakes. Cryptozoologist Roy Mackal has listed 32 of the most common physical characteristics of eye witness accounts and concluded the most likely explanation is a giant, two-humped urodele. The International Society of Cryptozoology has proposed the Zeuglodon, an extinct air-breathing whale as the best fit to described creatures. To date, approximately 700 eye-witness accounts of Lake Monsters have been filed around the world. Although the 1933 reports is the first fully documented event, other, less detailed reports exist much earlier, including and 1819 report from Lake Champlain and this rune stone located on Froson Island in Lake Storsjon in Sweden. At least seven times, an unidentifiable carcass roughly similar to the Lake Monster description has been found on the shore of a lake which has previously produced sightings.

Cryptozoology (Mountain Men):

Every mountain range in the world has yielded reports of a strange, shambling, man-like creature. These reports have been variously named yeti, bigfoot, meti, sasquatch and kang-mi but the physical descriptions remain remarkably consistent: about ten feet tall, 300 pounds, hairy and ape-like but walking erect. The first well documented sighting was by Nepal’s first British president BH Hodson in 1832 but the 1951 photographs by Eric Shipton clearly showing humanoid footprints 13 inches long and 8 inches wide moved the Mountain Men phenomena convincingly from the realm of myth to that of CZ. Further strong evidence came in the form of film shot by Roger Patterson in 1967. As yet, it is nearly impossible for a zoologist to actually investigate the Mountain Man sightings without encountering severe derision and lose of prestige within their field. Investigation of Mountain Man sightings is tantamount to career suicide for the serious zoologist despite the fact that gorillas reports were considered with the same derision less than 200 years ago. Due to this, resolution to these reports may be long in coming.

Scientific Arcana:

Neurobiologist Evan Balaban at the La Jolla Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California has successfully transferred brain cells from a quail to a chicken. This resulted in an alteration in the chicken’s sound patterns and altered head movement while singing.

Using a giant magnetic field of 16 teslas, scientists at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands have successfully levitated a live frog six feet in the air.

After years of derision from his colleges, Dr. Louis Frank of the University of Iowa has successfully demonstrated that giant chunks of ice between 20 and 40 tons routinely plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere adding an estimated 2.5 cm to the Earth’s oceans every 10,000 years.

Borge Nodland of the University of Rochester New York and John Ralston of the University of Kansas have discovered preliminary evidence which indicates that how light travels in space is affected by its direction of travel. They have discovered that the plane of polarization of light is rotated about once every billion years, implying asymmetrical space and varying physical density of the universal fabric.

On January 16, 1950 something created a massive cloud 700 -900 miles in diameter and 40-50 miles high above the surface of the planet Mars. No explanation has been formulated.

In recent years, it has become an accepted fact that reports of unusual objects such as frog or fish falling from the sky like rain are, indeed, true. These phenomena are blamed on freak wind conditions lifting these creatures into the air from which they later fall, some miles distant. What has not been explained is why these objects are routinely of a singular condition. For example, why are the strange rains only of a single type of creature at a time and why are they not intermingled with inorganic debris. As yet, science has opted not to investigate this phenomena.

Scientific Arcana: The Seven Experiments That Could Change the World:

In 1994 biologist Rupert Sheldrake published the book “The Seven Experiments That Could Change the World” in which he proposed seven experiments that had the potential to shake the foundations of the scientific establishment depending on the outcome. Each of the seven is an idea which may or may not be valid but which has a basis in observed phenomena and yet has never been investigated in depth because of the challenge that the implied conclusions would present to the establishment. These are some of the ideas which Sheldrake would like to see investigated: the reality of phantom limbs; the ability of pets to sense when their masters are coming home; how termite build archways; the variation throughout the universe of so-called physical constants such as the speed of light; can humans truly sense when they are being stared at; and the theory of ‘morphic resonance’. (Define MR)