Cryptozoology

In September of 1931 in a small farm house on the Isle of Man, the Irving family began hearing odd sounds coming from the attic of the home. Initially, they sounded like a wild animal moving around, but after a time the ‘animal’ began making sounds reportedly similar to those of a baby learning how to speak. It then began to mimic words spoken by the Irvings, much in the fashion of a parrot.

Within months, the creature, which the family apparently hadn’t yet seen directly, began speaking increasingly fluent English, relating to the Irvings that it had been born in New Delhi, India on June 7, 1852. No explanation was given as to how the animal got to Britain. Other paranormal activity began happening around the house, such as objects flying across the room inexplicably. The voice of the creature began spying on the neighbors and reporting back to the Irvings, and shortly after the creature revealed itself to be a mongoose, or something similar and even allowed itself to be petted by Margaret Irving.

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The twin fields of cryptozoology and crypto-botany are bursting with tales of strange and unusual plants and animals. While the public at large is generally aware of such cryptid superstars as the Loch Ness Monster and the Sasquatch, few have ever heard of the Man-Eating Trees of Madagascar, or the Mongolian Death worms.

In 1881 a magazine called the South Australian Register ran a story by a traveler called Carle Liche. He tells us that while travelling through Madagascar, he was horrified to watch the native Mdoko tribe sacrifice a woman to a man-eating tree. He stated that the places the woman near the tree, and after laying there for a few seconds, the tree’s tendrils took the woman by the neck and strangled her, before apparently engulfing the body. In his 1924 book “Madagascar, land of the man-eating tree” former Michigan Governor Chase Osborn recounted Liche’s tale, and mentioned that missionaries and locals in Madagascar all knew of the deadly tree. Unfortunately, Liche’s accounts may have been an exaggeration, as both the Mdoko tribe nor the man-eating tree have ever been found, and the governor may simply have been embellishing a little bit more to make for good reading.

 

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Interestingly enough, a reader sent in this comment in regards to our article, “Is the Jersey Devils Range Increasing?”

“Heyy,

My name is Victoria and i am starting a report on the JD (Jersey Devil) also known as the MLD (The Mother Leeds Devil)…People say when you make the Jersey Devil Cake and put it in your yard the Jersey Devil might come.. Read more

New Jersey’s pine barrens might qualify as the strangest stretch of woods in the world. It is completely out of place, a huge thick pine forest with only a sparse rural population situated among developed and largely urban New Jersey. The Pine Barrens is just the type of place for a cryptid, and boy does it have one. Of course, I speak of the Jersey Devil.

The most famous tale of the origins of this cryptid is of Mother Leeds. In 1735, the story goes, the good mother had given birth to twelve children. Said to be a witch, Leeds said that if she had child number 13, it would be the devil himself. Variations of the story say that the Devil was the father, but in any case, the child was born completely normal. Within minutes, it killed the midwife, grew a horse’s head, forked tail, wings and hooves and escaped through the chimney and went directly toward the Pine Barrens.

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Due to the breakout success of our first article, The Himuro Mansion Haunting, we’re going back to Asia for the wild tale of a red haired, human like animal believed by the locals to be a man eating prehistoric caveman, and by scientists to be an extinct primate. The story is a familiar one (Bigfoot or the local Yeti come to mind) but with some “all too human” peculiarities. So without further ado, here is the Tale of The Chinese Wildman:

Deep in the mountains of southern and central China there is said to exist a hairy humanoid creature known as the Yeren. Sightings of the Yeren, or Chinese Wildman, date back more than 2,000 years and are still reported today. Described as being a red haired bipedal animal, rising over six feet tall with a peculiarly fat belly and similarly strange pronounced buttocks, the Yeren bears a striking resemblance to many humans found in modern developed countries. Read more