Mongolian Death Worm

Is it a cryptid? Well let’s have a look at this creature and what is it meant to be.

The Mongolian Death Worm (MDW) is allegedly a creature that exists in the Gobi Desert. If you’re like me and geographically impaired it is a large cold desert, with grassland areas. It is the sixth largest desert in the world and spans northern China and southern Mongolia.

The tales of the creature came to western attention via a book by Roy Chapman Andrew’s 1926 publication, On The Trail Of Ancient Man. He had collected second hand accounts, they had not seen the creature but believed in it most sincerely. In 1983 a specimen of a Tartar sand boa was shown to locals, who identified it as the creature known as the MDW.

“It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor leg and it is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert.” 1922, Mongolian Primeminster, Damdinbazar.

Some sources list it as living in the western or southern Gobi, in a 1987 book Altajn Tsaadakh Govd, it cites a Mongolian legend of the creature that travels underground, it creates waves on the surface that give away its presence. It goes on to say the thing is capable of killing from a distance spraying venom or using an electrical discharge.

The creature has had some investigations, for instance in 1944 a Russian palaeontologist, Ivan Yefremov, was studying fossils. He found no creature of that ilk but also noted that the locals were adamant in their belief and spoke of the olgoi-khorkoi (MDW). In 1990 & 1992 a Czech Cryptoologist set off in search, Ivan Mackerle, they even used small explosions to try and bring it to the surface.

2005, Richard Freeman, a zoologist journalise for the Centre of Fortean Zoology headed out on the search. He came back empty handed and thought it might be some form of unidentified worm-lizard. The ‘reality’ show Destination Truth looked into it between 2006/2007 and I am sure there have been others and could likely be more.

In popular culture the creature isn’t as widespread as say Big Foot, but it has been a source for inspiration. My mind goes to Dungeons and Dragons and its purple worm. If you liked the film Dune you’re likely to have immediately thought of that! And I’d be remiss not to mention the film Mongolian Death Worm, 2010.

Sources: Planet Earth; Wikipedia; Russian Academy of Sciences; Roy Chapman Andrew’s 1926, On The Trail of Ancient Man; livescience.com; Skeptoid#344; Beast Hunter. Mongolian Death Worm.

The Beast of Gévaudan

This creature is generally described as looking like a wolf as large as a calf, with red fur and a streak of black down its back. The head is like that of a dog with small ears and a large mouth with big teeth.

The first recorded attack came in 1764, a young woman in a forest near Langogne saw the beast coming for her, the bulls in the herd around her chased it off. The first victim is recorded as Janne Boulet, she was fourteen years old and was killed in the village of Les Hubacs, also near Langogne. Throughout the year more attacks were reported, the victims were all alone and the beast aimed at the neck or head on each occasion.

2nd January, 1765 Jacques Portefaix along with several friends were attacked by the beast. They drove it back after it made several attacks and the encounter came to Louis XV, he decreed that the French State would find and kill the beast.

Two professional wolf hunters and eight bloodhounds were sent out on the case and for four months the two men hunted for Eurasian wolves, but the attacks continued. In June 1765 the king sent his bear hunter, Francois Antoine, he located and killed a 3rd large grey wolf on 20th September 1765.

With the beast dead he went back home, the large wolf was stuffed and sent to Versailles, he was paid handsomely for the kill. It did not end there though, 2nd December 1765 the beast was said to kill again. This time a dozen more attacked supposedly followed. The death was finally credited to a local hunter, Jean Chastel, who shot the creature with a blessed silver bullet and once opened the creatures stomach contained human remains.

Harry Dresden fans might remember that in the book Foul Moon, the story is used, it says the loup-garou rampage occurred in Gévaudan, France.

 

 

By Ethibaud – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134166210

Bigfoot

From the 1920’s onwards, stories has been told from North America (and Canada) of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch which is a giant 6-10 foot tall humanoid with shaggy hair, and a repulsive smell.

A miner claimed to have been abdusted by one another man said his group were attacked by an ape-man. The stories were dismissed as hoaxes.

Hoaxes about this seem to come up fairly regularly. In 1958 paw-prints were found at Bluff Creek but were made by wooden feet. A famous film from 1967, by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin showed what looked like a hairy female humanoid that rushed off into the woods. Was it a genuine cryptid, unknown animal or a hoax?

Raymond Patterson (1918-2002) was a big-foot hunter and his friend, Bob Heironimus, claimed it was a hoax as he was the man in the suit. Patterson and Gimli refused to retract the claim as valid footage and the debate goes on.

In 1973 in Illinois a couple parked up were scared out of their wits and described the creature they saw much like that of a Sasquatch. With slime-dripping from it’s body and a foul stench.

In 2008 a Youtube video surfaced that claimed to show a dead Bigfoot, it was found in Georgia. TV networks clustered around the freezer containing the corpse but it turned out to be another hoax, with a hollow head and rubber feet.

The search continues.

Cadborosaurus willsi

I do not know why but in my head this comes out as “cardboard a saurus willy” which I am aware sounds either very wrong, or very silly… but anyway on to the post! I haven’t really touched on the cryptoid subject that often, really it’s not one that floats my strange boat but I feel I should acknowledge them none-the-less.

“Caddy” is a lake monster, akin to the rather famous Loch Ness Monster. He is reported (or was) to be living on the Pacific Coast of North America and is named thanks to Cadboro Bay in Victoria, British Columbia. Witnesses have said that he looks like a serpent with vertical coils or humps in tandem behind a horse-like head. He has a long neck, small elevating front flippers and either a pair of hind flippers that are fused together to form a lie tail fan for propulsion.

Suggestions are put forward to explain Caddy, including Congers eels or sea lions. 1943 two police officers spotted something in the Georgia Lake which to the naked eye could well have been something like CW but with binoculars and a little deductions they found it to be a bull sea lion. Another plausible explanation for Caddy appears to come in the form of in the form of Giant Oarfish, some of which are reported at 17 metres in length.

I like this rather nice and simply produced visual representation.

So the sightings/dead things bit…

1930 – there was a skeleton found in ice near Valdez that was 24 feet long with flippers, some of the remains were used for scientific study which was thought to be a whale but was undetermined.

1934 Henry Island found badly decomposed remains, the strange mess was about 30 feet long but once the remains were examined they were identified as basking shark.

The 1940’s saw two corpses, one was named Sarah the Sea Hag, and both were found to be a shark. 1950 Delake, Oregon offered up much the same as a  whale shark found it’s way into the hands of the locals.

Finally the last one I have is 1963, Oak Harbour when a carcass with a head that looked vaguely like that of a horse was found it was passed over to A D Welander Fisheries. The best suggestion for this was that it was a basking shark.

The Dover Demon

The Dover Demon is a cryptid that comes from the Massachusett’s area, USA. It was first reported April 21st 1977. He has attracted enough interest worldwide to have figurines of him made in Japan.

The Dover Demon was first sighted by three 17 year old boys driving through the area, the cars headlights caught it as they passed near a bar. Bill Bartlett was the driver that reported the sighting saying that at first he thought it was a dog or cat. On closer inspection they found it was a rather unearthly-looking thing crawling along a stone wall, Farm Street.

He watched it long enough to get a desciption, which is that it had a disproportionately large head with illuminated orange eyes. It has long thin arms and slender fingers. It was hairless with a rough skin and had no eyes, ears or mouth that he could see. Other witnesses say the creature has green eyes, chalky grey skin and that it makes a blood curdling screech, however the sexless, featureless descriptions are a match.

It was then seen an hour later by two more teenagers who were walking home. Both of them said it was bipedal, this also matched the same description from two people the next day who said the same information as Bartlett however he reported the eyes as green not orange. All witnesses have remained steadfast with their description and they all drew sketches. Bartlett’s included a note to say he also would swear on a stack of Bibles that’s what he saw.

So… how does he fit in with theories? Let’s jump straight to alien, a possible human/alien hybrid that escaped from a secret compound? How about a being from another dimension?

A curiously mundane (and perhaps more sensible) suggestion comes from zoological sources who say it might be a newborn moose. Some of the descriptives are very similar but a moose has hooves not fingers. Also it was disputed saying that at the time the offspring would be larger and no records for them exist in eastern Mass- for 1977.

So the conlusion is that there is so far nothing evidence wise to prove or disprove the Devon Demon. The description is also similar to that of the Mannegishi creature native to Cree Indians in Canada. It could also be similar to some aquatic beings, like a merbeing type. A similar description also comes up in the Carribean legends of the Backoo.

Unfortunately there was also a greater deal of skepticism due to the age of the people involved. Some skeptics like to cite that this is nothing more than teenage pranking, but before the reportings had been put together after the fact there is nothing to suggest the teenagers had even met. Another one for the unsolved case but intriguing none the less.

A funny comedy vid about it