Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths

by Darren Naish

EALITY BEHIND THE MYTHS DARREN

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Chapter 3 Creatures of Loch and Lake Chapter 4 Of Bigfoot, Yeti and Other Cryptohominids Chapter 5 Mokele-Mbembe, Ropen and Other ‘Prehistoric Survivors’ Chapter 6 Mystery Marsupials and Other Oddities Chapter 7 The

superstar cryptids are so popular, so familiar, that a major portion of interest in world mysteries, in the paranormal and the unexplained is driven specifically by the curiosity that surrounds them. In other words, it’s partly thanks to an interest in the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot and so on that such subjects as UFOs, ghosts, reincarnation and telekinesis get the widespread coverage that they do. Cryptids tend to be lumped in with these other subjects, and thus have a bad reputation among scientists and other critical thinkers.

generated from Nessie-based tourism, books, toys, merchandise, movies and TV shows. This image shows the famous ‘Surgeon’s photo’ or ‘Wilson photo’. On the other hand, the idea that these creatures might really exist inspires many people to think about the reliability of eyewitness evidence as a source of information, and to consider seriously how cryptids might make sense as living, breeding, breathing creatures. The Loch Ness monster, the yeti and so on can introduce people to a broader interest in critical thinking, a scientific view of the world and a curiosity about the natural world and how we interpret it. Seen from this point of view, cryptids might not be a bad thing at all. Throughout history, people claim

collected great quantities of eyewitness data pertaining to cryptids and have also come up with a great number of ideas about the sorts of creatures these cryptids might really be, about how they live and behave and about their evolutionary history. This entire field of research is termed cryptozoology and in this book we’ll look at a number of classic ‘target creatures’ of the field in a critical fashion. One aim of this book is to work out how these alleged creatures are best interpreted. Do they really represent unknown creatures, or can we provide better explanations for their alleged existence? A second aim is to look at why they’ve been imagined or depicted in the way that they