Practical Cryptozoology

The Logical Reasons Cryptids May Exist

When most people hear the word “paranormal” or “supernatural” they think of something that is ambiguous at least, and outright laughable at most.  However, many of you reading this post may feel that this category of phenomena is interesting and potentially believable. But what if I told you that it is something more than that? What if I said that the paranormal/supernatural was basically scientific fact? While you scoff at my audacity to even imply such a thing, let me tell you this… Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING can be described by science. That’s simply the way science, (the tool/discipline itself, not those who claim to practice it), works. It describes things. It is what we use to explain everything we experience in this existence. The fact that we don’t have enough information about something has no bearing on whether or not science can describe it. All it means is that we cannot describe it AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME. Once enough information/data is gathered about the subject, science can describe it just like everything else.

With this simple reasoning in mind, it should be a short hop for us to realize that our world just got a whole lot bigger. Ideas that we once dismissed, now seem more plausable. Thoughts that seemed trivial, now hint at unfathomable importance. The vertigo is dizzying…. Welcome! You just acquired an open mind! This state of being is possibly one of the greatest tools mankind has ever had at his desposal. The creativity and knowledge that can be tapped at this point is, quite literally, limitless…Tread carefully, because here there be monsters, and I’m not speaking figuratively. 

What I am inferring is the possible existance of the creatures encompassing the field of Cryptozoology. Merriam-Webster defines cryptozoology as: “the study of and search for animals and especially legendary animals (such as Sasquatch) usually in order to evaluate the possibility of their existence.” Though more respected in the past, throughout the 20th century, it was considered fringe science or even pseudoscience. But since the advent of the internet, and the subsequent resurgence of the paranormal, cryptozoology has, not only regained the standing it once had, but surpassed it in popularity.

Dogmen

There exists, in nearly every culture on Earth, lore of large creatures that appear in the form of a hybridization between primate and canid. Some of these legends have the creature transform, at various times, back and forth between the man and wolf, as if under a magical curse.  Likewise, there are those where the creature appears at all times in its wolflike form.

I believe the strongest contender for what the dogman really is, would be a remnant species of Amphicyon (bear-dog) that has evolved the ability to move bipedally at speed.  With, perhaps, parallel evolution of the already,  highly-developed forearms, hands, and enhanced  mental capacity.

Sasquatch

The idea of a large, yet undescribed, primate stalking the forested areas of our world is not that difficult to believe. The mountain gorilla and orangutan have been considered mythical for most of written history. Yet now every child knows them on sight. They are in our zoos and on our televisions. Who knows, Sasquatch may be as much a familiar sight to your grandchildren, though hopefully not in zoos. My point is, their existance shouldn’t be a very large stretch of the imagination. This is buoyed by the discovery of a fossil jawbone of an extremely large primate in Asia known as Gigantopithecus blacki. Soon other fossils were found that allowed descriptions of other Gigantopithecus species.

My Weirdness

Anyone that knows me well, realizes that I’m a total anomaly as a person. I’m strange. Just plain weird. So I decided to give my blog readers a glimpse of that weirdness with these fifteen odd/interesting things about me.

1. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder and so everything has to be in a certain place or it stresses me out, yet I am also a procrastinator so I sometimes leave things lying around for a while. (Do you see the irony?)

2. I love nature and being outside yet I am allergic to nearly everything and I hate getting sweaty and dirty.

3. I have a deep respect for all living things and as a personal rule, there are only three reasons that I would ever kill anything: 1. for food  2. for protection  3. euthanasia

4. I have taken the Boy Scout motto: “Be Prepared” so seriously that I pack twice as much gear when I go somewhere (even if it is across town) than a normal person. I would be considered a “prepper” by some, “crazy” by others.

5. I love military history, war movies, and collecting weapons, yet I am a pacifist.

6. I am so open-minded that ideas that normal people find unacceptable, I find trivial. And likewise, ideas that normal people find acceptable, I find intolerable.

7. I am obsessed with collecting things: fossils, rocks, books, sundials, compasses, armillary spheres, hourglasses, globes, flags, coins, swords, knives, bayonets, military uniforms, tikis (native art), musical instruments,  Batman, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Star Trek collectibles, and the list goes on….

8. If it has to do with nature, science, history, or art, I like it.  If it doesn’t, I could care less about it.

9. I refuse to accept the notion of a “weed” because to me all plants have their place, usefulness, and reason for existing.

10.  I can’t read a book or watch a movie if someone tells me how it is going to end.  Likewise, I can’t watch the same movie more than once in a 6 month period or it irritates me, unless it is one of my favorite franchises.

11. I am obsessed with things that glow in the dark or are phosphorescent under a UV light. I think it is the scientific aspect of it that intrigues me, or maybe it is just cool.

 

12. I love Jeeps to the point that I almost refuse to own any other type of vehicle. I guess that makes me a ‘car snob.’

 

13. I take my 2nd Amendment right seriously and to the extreme. I think the government may consider me a terrorist due to the pro-gun rants that I post on Facebook.

 

14. I will join my kids in playing Lego to the point that you may think I’m a kid as well.

 

15. Though I am a trained scientist, I am open-minded. I believe in, and am fascinated by, the supernatural. I have a family history that promotes and supports this belief. I have had experiences myself, and I hope to have more. I’m always up for a good ghost or cryptid story. Likewise, I believe in the potential for extraterrestrial life.

Michelin Road Apparition

This happened one Saturday in the autumn of 2013. I was in Ardmore Oklahoma, driving along Michelin Road, formerly Uniroyal Road, heading westbound at about 1:30 a.m. I was on my way home from a friend’s house where we had spent the evening playing card games. The night was cool but not uncomfortable and very clear. This area is well lit with streetlights as the interstate ramps are but a few hundred yards away. I had just passed the Michelin Tire factory and began turning into a curve when I noticed the two cars in front of me slowing down. The flashing brake lights made me think that a deer had run out in front of them, which is a common occurrence around there. By the time I slowed, the other cars had continued on and I scanned the roadsides for any critters that might spook and run out in front of me. I saw no deer, but what I did see had me perplexed. Off to my left, standing right at the edge of the road was a woman with her back to me. She appeared to be staring quietly into the small glade of trees that grew about 5 foot off the roadway. Her outfit seemed outdated, with a particular 1980’s flair. She wore a heavy, turtle neck sweater of a light color, faded tight jeans, and light colored shoes. She had dark, shoulder-length hair.  She didn’t appear to notice any of the attention she was drawing, and there was no home or vehicle sitting along the road that she might have come from.  Being the decent person that I am, I began to apply more brake to stop and see if she needed help. I thought it was rude that the other two cars didn’t stop. Then, just before I came to a complete halt, a slow, heavy, oppressive feeling crept over me. It was then that one, and only one thought popped into my head…….”NO KEEP GOING!” It was at that moment that I knew something was not right with the situation and I accelerated down the road. Once I got passed her, I realized that time and the atmosphere seemed to normalize and I knew then what she really was. She was a ghost. A lost soul that decided to make herself known to three late night travelers.

Cheek Road Apparition

This happened when I was fourteen, I am now forty-two.  I was riding home from church with a friend, who was sixteen, in his dad’s small 1987 Ford Ranger pickup.  The church that we attended is known as the Country Tabernacle Pentacostal Church of God, located on Cheek Road in Lone Grove, Oklahoma.  This road runs South, perpendicular to State Highway 70 just a couple of miles west of town.  The night was slightly foggy and misty, but visibility wasn’t compromised.  We left the church as soon as it was over that Sunday night around 8:00 pm.  The church is seven miles south of the highway.  We were travelling north towards my home across town.  We were both chatting and listening to the radio, but my friend was a very responsible driver and wasn’t that distracted.  As we came to the intersection with the highway, there was no other cars or pedestrians around.  I made a mental note of how little traffic was on the highway and dismissed it as due to the fact that it was a rainy Sunday night.  We made a rolling stop at the stop sign and was in mid-right turn when for some unknown reason, I was compelled to look out the back window over my left shoulder.  What I saw when I looked out the window was a human figure walking northbound across the highway.  I only saw the profile and back of the figure for the few seconds that I saw it.  It was tall and skinny, wearing a khaki trench coat, cinched tight around the waist.  The hands were shoved into the coat pockets, shoulders hunched.  The head was looking at the ground and had a gray fedora (gangster/Indiana Jones style hat) pulled down over the eyes.  I saw no recognizable features of the face. Gray slacks were noticeable at the bottom of the calf-length coat.  I did not notice any feet.  The figure’s legs were moving but its motion was more of a smooth glide.  It covered the ground very quickly.  I thought it strange and asked my friend if he saw it, for I thought at first that he had almost run over a pedestrian.  He looked in his mirrors and said no.  It was then that I realized that it wasn’t humanly possible for a physical being to be there.  For it to have been where I saw it when I did, the figure would have had to be walking right behind the truck at the same speed as the truck and then continue moving northbound as we turned eastbound.  We were probably going over 5 mph at the time and the figure looked as if it was just travelling at a leisurely pace.  A normal person would have had to be jogging at least to make that time and then they would have had to run right through the bed of the truck to be where they were when I saw them.  I have gone over the physics of this many times in my head and I still come up with the same conclusion.  It could not have been a physical person.  Even if it was, why did I not see any feet when I saw enough to get such an accurate description of everything else?  About five years ago I was telling this story to the girlfriend of another friend of mine and she freaked out.  This is what she said.  When she was in high school, a story circulated that if you went to that intersection and waited in your car, the figure (dressed exactly as I saw) would come and knock on your window.  If you rolled your window down, it would ask you a question, (I can’t for the life of me remember the question).  If you answered it the apparition would disappear.  Supposedly the police got wind of this and went to check out who was pranking people.  A couple of officers waited in their patrol car at the intersection.  Right on cue the figure appeared, knocked, the officers rolled the window down and answered the question.  The figure disappeared and the officers sped back to town with lights and sirens blaring.