[Misc] Nessie, big cats, Sasquatch etc

[schmunk]

Talking of fishing I was fishing a lake years ago near Horsham is was just staring to get dark and my float shot under the water and by Christ there was something huge on the line.
Years of fishing and I’ve never hooked something like that It took off to the middle of the lake and I just couldn’t get it off the bottom.
Didn’t feel like a carp or a pike it just wouldn’t tire what ever it was. Lost is eventually I was gutted I couldn’t get it to the surface to see what it was.

Big Bad Barry?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Has anyone else fallen down the incredible aliens / wormholes / killer creatures rabbit hole that is Skinwalker Ranch?

Basically an old ranch in Utah where strange things have apparently happened for centuries. Now filled with blokes with PhD after their names firing rockets with GPS trackers on and digging in to a macer to prove it has a space ship / worm hole in it.

But there have always been cattle mutilations and they took samples of the teeth marks from the latest one that an actual forensic biologist reckoned could only be from a Dire Wolf - which has been supposedly extinct for a very long time.

It’s the only programme to come close to making me believe some of this stuff. UAPs captured on camera, inexplicable instrument readings and the military taking an unhealthy interest in it all. If it is a hoax it’s a bloody good one.

I may have to slap you hard in the face next time I see you



One of my most favourite, most delicious things was (and still is a bit) pondering the mysterious world of the paranormal. One of my favourite writers is Howard Phillips Lovecraft. The idea of spaces between the spaces, colours never before seen, windows into other universes, is all so moreish to me.

I am not sure I ever even wanted to believe any of it. I just liked the feel of it. The weft. And as someone who can only hear what is said literally, and cannot read between lines (neurodiversity) it all has the potential to be quite frightening. Perhaps I see the fear as a challenge (which is why I make myself do things I don't enjoy), something to be overcome.

But it is all bollocks though.

I can sum up the revelations of the paranormal in terms of their truth and value in one word.

James Randi.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I may have to slap you hard in the face next time I see you



One of my most favourite, most delicious things was (and still is a bit) pondering the mysterious world of the paranormal. One of my favourite writers is Howard Phillips Lovecraft. The idea of spaces between the spaces, colours never before seen, windows into other universes, is all so moreish to me.

I am not sure I ever even wanted to believe any of it. I just liked the feel of it. The weft. And as someone who can only hear what is said literally, and cannot read between lines (neurodiversity) it all has the potential to be quite frightening. Perhaps I see the fear as a challenge (which is why I make myself do things I don't enjoy), something to be overcome.

But it is all bollocks though.

I can sum up the revelations of the paranormal in terms of their truth and value in one word.

James Randi.

It's great entertainment though.

But the thing isn't so much that the explanation for a lot of it is aliens / dire wolves / wormholes. It's, as @Commander says, that there is no rational explanation for repeatable anomalous data. You'd dig in to that in your lab, wouldn't you (especially if the History Channel paid you enough to retire to the Bahamas on)?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It's great entertainment though.

But the thing isn't so much that the explanation for a lot of it is aliens / dire wolves / wormholes. It's, as @Commander says, that there is no rational explanation for repeatable anomalous data. You'd dig in to that in your lab, wouldn't you (especially if the History Channel paid you enough to retire to the Bahamas on)?

Perhaps I should give it a watch

 

[Guinness Boy]

Perhaps I should give it a watch

Go with the later series. Early on I think they were trying to stretch it out a lot with (as AZ said) some pseudo science bolleaux like Indian chants and cave drawings. But the rocket propelled GPS anomalies (consistently repeatable) and enormous f**k off drill bit experiments are great fun. The lead investigator is a PhD Astro Physicist and former sceptic. It won't be turning me full Swanny but I reckon a scientist would enjoy trying to explain or debunk it.

 

[Blue3]

I along with a car full and loads of other cars all ground to a halt on the M3 when a very big cat black with huge tail walked across the motorway this was pre camera phones it was early morning and it stopped traffic in both directions probably the size of an Alsatian

 

[Albion my Albion]

Why have you got a picture of my mother-in-law's cat?

He tried to grab her by the pu**y but she was confused as to what he wanted.

 

[Justice]

He tried to grab her by the pu**y but she was confused as to what he wanted.

Who grabbed her? Trump?

 

[Justice]

It's great entertainment though.

But the thing isn't so much that the explanation for a lot of it is aliens / dire wolves / wormholes. It's, as @Commander says, that there is no rational explanation for repeatable anomalous data. You'd dig in to that in your lab, wouldn't you (especially if the History Channel paid you enough to retire to the Bahamas on)?

I watched a couple of seasons you will never get any real answers and will never know if it’s a hoax either as you say it’s reasonable entertainment.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Ollie into the swing of things modern and rational in his new job at Swindon:

"Swindon Town boss Ian Holloway has claimed their poor run of form could be down to the training ground being haunted.

Holloway said there were "some strange things happening" after Robins captain Ollie Clarke ruptured a tendon in his ankle during training last week.

The 61-year-old added he would be asking his wife to "cleanse the area" with sage as it is close to an ancient burial site."

 

[GJN1]

I’m watching a “documentary” on the Loch Ness Monster.

Gibberish but great fun to watch.

I love the idea of big cats on the loose in the British countryside. And enjoy the various shonky photos and locals being interviewed on the pub on documentaries.

I think Attenborough even believes in the possibility of Big Foot?

Anyhoo, great fun but have you ever seen a beastie out there in the rolling hills? Up from the depths?

Back in the late 1990s when I worked for a magazine, I spent a month trawling the country looking for all these mythical beasts (Nessie, the Fen Tiger, the Beast of Exmoor, etc, etc.) Found them all too. Actually, I didn't find any of them. Still, was a month out of the office.

 

[Han Solo]

I knew a cryptozoologist called Jan-Ove Sundberg (now dead) when I was a kid.

Maybe "knew" is the wrong word, but I visited his website ( https://web.archive.org/web/20010424085828/http://www.cryptozoology.st ) quite often and sent him a few emails about this and that.

At some point he starting to send me letters with pictures and greetings. ENDLESS letters with pictures and greetings.

I imagine most people who go on expeditions to find more or less obscure sea monsters are a bit crazy... but I imagine it is/was f***ing exciting as well.

25 years later I imagine it is rather easy to just scan the shit out of all these lakes and whatnot. It kind of removes the "what if?" factor. Bit sad.

 

[Taybha]

We eventually moved away from Borth and this is why

 

[Lenny Rider]

There are definitely big cats in the UK countryside. Loch Ness Monster is a load of nonsense though, unfortunately.

But great for the Scottish tourist industry.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

I along with a car full and loads of other cars all ground to a halt on the M3 when a very big cat black with huge tail walked across the motorway this was pre camera phones it was early morning and it stopped traffic in both directions probably the size of an Alsatian

I was driving up the M11 a few years ago when the traffic ground to a halt. After a few minutes, we gradually started creeping forward, until I found myself at the front of the queue with the road open in front of me.

Walking across the carriageway in plain view, were two men, carrying a sofa across the motorway. No indication of where they came from or where they were going.

Truly, a mystery worthy of the X-Files.

 

[Coldeanseagull]

I was driving up the M11 a few years ago when the traffic ground to a halt. After a few minutes, we gradually started creeping forward, until I found myself at the front of the queue with the road open in front of me.

Walking across the carriageway in plain view, were two men, carrying a sofa across the motorway. No indication of where they came from or where they were going.

Truly, a mystery worthy of the X-Files.

Ah, that's a rare sighting of the couch of cambridge

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Ah, that's a rare sighting of the couch of cambridge

A similar phenomenon's been reported on the M1 in north Derbyshire.

They've had to put up signs and everything.

 

[Algernon]

My Father told me of a time when he was travelling in a troop convoy at night in the open back of a lorry through the Malaysian jungle.
He was in the rear most truck and swears that him and a few others saw what he and they could only describe as a "dinosaur" cross the jungle road behind them.
Over the years he occasionally reminded me that there were dinosaurs alive in Malaya.

I did quiz him if they were all coming back drunk from a bar but he denied it.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Convinced I saw a big cat of some sort in Sussex…..several years ago (30ish) a fairly long way from any roads (between Scaynes Hill and Sheffield Park). Before the days of camera phones. Jet black, definitely cat-shaped but the size of something like a labrador.

The Chailey Cheetah?

 

[Han Solo]

My Father told me of a time when he was travelling in a troop convoy at night in the open back of a lorry through the Malaysian jungle.
He was in the rear most truck and swears that him and a few others saw what he and they could only describe as a "dinosaur" cross the jungle road behind them.
Over the years he occasionally reminded me that there were dinosaurs alive in Malaya.

I did quiz him if they were all coming back drunk from a bar but he denied it.

When was it?

Things like this sound silly today but its easy to forget that only 50 years ago there were lots and lots of white dots on the maps. Only about a 100 years ago the Komodo dragon sounded like a dumb fable but there it was... undiscovered by "civilised" humans for thousands of years.

Going into a deep jungle in Kongo or Malaysia thinking "oh yeah its all sorted I know all about this forest-thingie" is what a lot of people would do but going in there with the "wait, is that a feckin dinousaur?" mindset is probably the humble and safe approach.