Cryptozoology And The Paranormal

The Tooth of Nessie

Two American students once claimed to find the tooth of the Loch Ness Monster during their vacation to Scotland. They found it in a dead deer laying by the shore of the loch. Shortly after taking pictures of it a park ranger passed by and confiscated it. They posted the pictures online later to publicize their claim. The “tooth” was identified by keen eyed viewers as an antler from a roe muntjac deer. It’s said that the story was all a hoax and was actually a publicity stunt to help promote an upcoming book about the Loch Ness Monster.

100 Foot Snake In River

This mysterious photo was said to have been taken by a disaster team scouting flood regions in the Amazon River Basin. It appears to show a giant snake estimated over 100 feet long swimming in the river. Many people were fooled by the strange photo believing the Amazon truly does hide monsters. Many people wanted to believe the photo is real, including myself but after doing some digging it’s very clear this photo is the result of some clever photoshop work. In fact the photo isn’t even that of the Amazon, but the Congo River. This however doesn’t prove that monster snakes don’t exist, just that this particular photo isn’t of one. There are those who believe giant snakes are out there including titanoboa. Its believed there was one photographed in 1959 which gives some hope to finding monster-sized snakes in the wild.

Shaman Mistaken For Bigfoot

On August 4th the group Bigfoot 911 who are located out of North Carolina said they saw Bigfoot. However these claims were quickly explained when a man named Gawain MacGregor explained that what they saw must’ve been him. During the night of the sighting MacGregor was wearing sewn animal pelts and wandering the forests in the area where Sasquatch was spotted, he said he was performing a sacrament which involved him running around in the woods covered in animal fur. Bigfoot 911’s leader John Bruner claims that it’s impossible what they saw was MacGregor. He says what he and the group saw was at least 8ft tall and “moved with speed unmatched by any human.” He also made note that the face of what his group and him saw was different from what MacGregor was wearing. Is it possible that Bigfoot 911 actually saw a real sasquatch and it was just coincidence that MacGregor was also there? Could the sacrament that MacGregor have been performing have attracted a sasquatch? Or did Bigfoot 911 misidentify MacGregor? What do you think? Stay curious!

Dead Bigfoot Hoax

Back in 2008 Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer claimed they stumbled across the dead body of Bigfoot in Georgia. They put it in a freezer for safe keeping and began to tell the world that they have a dead Sasquatch in their possession. At a first glance the photo looks authentic, but at a closer look it doesn’t exactly look authentic. However they still had the world fooled. It wasn’t until Bigfoot researcher Steve Kulls took a close look at the body that he realized it was fake. When examining the supposed body he made the discovery that when it thawed he noticed the body was rubber and nothing more than just a stuffed rubber gorilla suit. After accusing Whitton and Dyer of hoaxing the body they confessed to it. The world will have to wait for an authentic body in the future.

The Stuart Photograph

In 1951 Lachlan Stuart took this photograph claiming that he captured the humps of the Loch Ness Monster. Stuart worked for the Forestry Commision at the time and was a well respected employee. When he released this photo of the legendary Nessie people were shocked. The photo became without question an authentic photograph for two decades. It wasn’t until over 20 years later that the photograph was questioned. Nessie researchers found out where the photo was taken and journeyed to that part of the loch. To their surprise the water was incredibly shallow, too shallow for a creature the size of Nessie to swim in. It wasn’t until this discovery that it was found out that Stuart hoaxed the photograph. The humps seen in the photo are nothing more than bales of hay covered in tarpaulins.

The Gnome of Girona

In September of 1989 two couples went camping in Girona, Spain. The four friends sat around a campfire listening to music on a cassette tape. A small strange creature appeared and was seemingly attracted to the music. The campers quickly threw a blanket over the creature trapped it in a bird cage. It had red eyes, and blueish skin. It was only 12 centimeters tall. The creature got media attention and was named “The Gnome of Girona.” Despite the people giving the creature food it refused to eat. It died after four days in the cage. The people decided to preserve the creature and put it in a jar full of formaldehyde. It later was sold to parapsychologist Angel Gordon. Gordon showed off the dead creature on multiple TV shows and news broadcasts. He had everybody convinced until different people came forward saying that it was a hoax which got people curious. It turns out that the “Gnome” he had been showing off was actually a deceased deformed cow fetus and that Gordon had actually paid actors to fabricate the camping story.

The Man Behind The Surgeons Photo

Marmaduke Wetherell (pictured sitting above) is the one who fooled the world. He is responsible for tricking the whole world into believing that a toy submarine was actually the Loch Ness Monster. When the monster was first spotted in the Loch, the Daily Mail sent for big game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell to find Nessie. After searching for the monster to no avail he finally found something! He saw what appeared to be large footprints leading into the water. After closer examination by the Natural History museum the footprints were said to be fake and Wetherell was humiliated. He then gave up his search for the monster.

Months later Wetherell devised a scheme to get “proof” of the monster, and to get his revenge. His son quoted with saying “we’ll give them their monster!” as he planned the great hoax. So he set up a sea serpents head to a toy submarine, with the help of Christian Spurling who modeled the creatures head. He snapped the famous photo and prepared for it to be shown to the public. But he couldn’t reveal the photo because nobody would believe him, so he gave it to British surgeon Colonel Robert Wilson who would then release the photo to the public. Wilson knew it was a fraud and refused to have his name associated with the photo which is why it became known as the “surgeon’s photo.”

It wasn’t until 1994 when Christian Spurling laid on his death bed that he admitted that the photo was a fake. He revealed to the world the details of the photo and how they faked it. In the end Marmaduke Wetherell did get his revenge, he managed to fool the world for 60 years in what many people call the greatest hoax of all time.

Peter O'Connor’s Nessie Photo

In May of 1960 Peter O'Connor was camping near the shore of Loch Ness. When he had the urge to urinate he exited his tent in the early morning hours to see a large creature slowly swimming in the Loch. He claims he waded into the water about waist deep and snapped this photo. He claimed he was able to do it stealthily without the creature noticing due to his Royal Marine Commando training. The results are what appears to be an up-close photo of the legendary Nessie.

The photo itself raised some questions. If he was truly waist deep the photo should have been taken closer to the water’s surface. He also claimed it was taken around 6:30am, however at this time in May he sun would be rising and the photo appears too dark for any appearance of the sun. The only light source is from the camera flash which was estimated to be about 4 meters above the water’s surface which only further disproves the claim he waded into water. The creature in the photo also appears to be stationary, but O'Connor claims it was moving.

When the location of the photo was investigated by Maurice Burton (a renowned British zoologist) he discovered three polythene bags, stones tied together with a rope, and a log which “looked exactly like the creature’s head.” From this point on the photo was discredited as an elaborate hoax by a man looking for fame.