Recap

Cryptozoology Update

Cryptozoologist Jonathan Downes, who's traveled the world looking for all order of strange creatures, shared his observations and insights. The creatures he investigates fall into three categories-- cryptids, animals that simply have yet to be officially discovered and classified, known creatures that appear in the wrong place or time, and weird entities such as Mothman that defy conventional concepts. Some creatures can actually fit into more than one category, he added.

Downes discussed his investigation of the chupacabras in Puerto Rico (he visited the island in 1998 and 2004). He now believes that the attacks and sightings may represent a collection of disparate phenomena rather than just one type of creature. Some goat attacks attributed to the chupacabras were caused by a mongoose, and sightings of a spined creature could have been a derivative of an African porcupine, he detailed.

If a Bigfoot is ever caught, he suspects it may take place in the swamps of Texas, where a "human-sized something" was captured with thermal imagery by Chester Moore, Jr. The Loch Ness monster and similar creatures sighted in lakes across the Northern Hemisphere are probably giant eel, possibly as large as 20-ft. long, he has concluded. A series of "Owlman" sightings in Cornwall in the U.K. began in 1976, with a witness describing a feathered humanoid creature flying over a church tower. However, unlike the Mothman case, the sightings were not precursors to tragedy, he noted.

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Portrait: Jonathan Downes

A photo (view enlargement) of Jonathan Downes, taken at Loch Ness in 2005.