The Thetis Lake Monster is a legendary creature and admitted hoax of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. In 1972, two teenage boys claimed to see a monster emerge from Thetis Lake beach. The description of the creature that the teenagers gave matched the description of the Gill-man from the 1954 film Creature from the Black Lagoon .
On 22 August 1972, the Victoria Daily Times reported that two local teen boys claimed to have seen a creature with "silvery scaled skin, sharp claws, and spikes on its head" while swimming at Thetis Lake beach in the evening. The newspaper reports described the creature as roughly resembling the Gill-man from the Creature from the Black Lagoon . The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated, but could find no evidence. Two other boys fishing on the opposite shore of the lake claimed to have also seen the monster. However, when writer Daniel Loxton contacted one of the individuals years later, he admitted they had fabricated the story to get attention. [1] [2]
Loxton discovered that the boys description of the scaly monster – which specified a sharply pointed head and large, ear-like gills — exactly matched that of the monster featured in the film Monster From The Surf , which had aired on local television a few days prior to the boy's claimed sighting. According to Loxton, "local TV had shown a movie about a scaled humanoid gill-man attacking teenagers at the beach after dark. Four days later, local teenagers reported being attacked at the Thetis beach after dark by a scaled monster". [2] [1]
The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes.
Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, or the Mokele-mbembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as cryptids, a term coined by the subculture. Because it does not follow the scientific method, cryptozoology is considered a pseudoscience by mainstream science: it is neither a branch of zoology nor of folklore studies. It was originally founded in the 1950s by zoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson.
The Loch Ness Monster, affectionately known as Nessie, is a mythical creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or more humps protruding from the water. Popular interest and belief in the creature has varied since it was brought to worldwide attention in 1933. Evidence of its existence is anecdotal with a number of disputed photographs and sonar readings.
The mokele-mbembe, Lingala for "one who stops the flow of rivers", is a mythical water-dwelling entity that supposedly lives in the Congo River Basin, sometimes described as a living creature, sometimes as a spirit. Descriptions vary widely among those who claim to have seen the creature, but it is often described as a large quadrupedal herbivore with smooth skin, a long neck and a single tooth or horn.
The Yeti is an ape-like creature purported to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range in Asia. In Western popular culture, the creature is commonly referred to as the Abominable Snowman. Many dubious articles have been offered in an attempt to prove the existence of the Yeti, including anecdotal visual sightings, disputed video recordings, photographs, and plaster casts of large footprints. Some of these are speculated or known to be hoaxes.
Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster horror film produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold, from a screenplay by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross and a story by Maurice Zimm. It stars Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, and Whit Bissell. The film's plot follows a group of scientists who encounter a piscine amphibious humanoid in the waters of the Amazon; the Creature, also known as the Gill-man, was played by Ben Chapman on land and by Ricou Browning underwater. Produced and distributed by Universal-International, Creature from the Black Lagoon premiered in Detroit on February 12, 1954, and was released on a regional basis, opening on various dates.
Pyramid power refers to the belief that the ancient Egyptian pyramids and objects of similar shape can confer a variety of benefits. Among these assumed properties are the ability to preserve foods, sharpen or maintain the sharpness of razor blades, improve health, function "as a thought-form incubator", trigger sexual urges, and cause other effects. Such unverified conjectures regarding pyramids are collectively known as pyramidology.
Skeptic, colloquially known as Skeptic magazine, is a quarterly science education and science advocacy magazine published internationally by The Skeptics Society, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs. First published in 1992, the magazine had a circulation of over 40,000 subscribers in 2000.
According to urban legend, Goatman is a creature resembling a goat-human hybrid often credited with canine deaths and purported to take refuge in the woods of Prince George's County, Maryland, United States.
In the folklore of Lee County, South Carolina, the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp is an entity said to inhabit the swampland of the region. First mentioned in the late 1980s, the purported sightings and damage attributed to the creature yielded a significant amount of newspaper, radio and television publicity.
Jon-Erik Beckjord was an American paranormal investigator, photographer, and cryptozoologist interested in UFOs, crop circles, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot. Throughout his life, he owned three separate, small-scale museums that featured displays, mostly photographs, of alleged UFO, Nessie, and Bigfoot sightings. He made guest appearances on national radio and television shows, but was criticized by skeptics and fellow cryptozoologists alike for not providing substantive evidence to back up his claims of the existence of paranormal beings.
The Flatwoods monster, in West Virginia folklore, is a creature reported to have been sighted in the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia, United States, on September 12, 1952, after a bright light crossed the night sky. Over 50 years later, investigators suggest the light was a meteor and the creature was a barn owl perched in a tree with shadows making it appear to be a large humanoid.
In Texan folklore, the Lake Worth Monster is a legendary creature said to inhabit Lake Worth at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, just outside Fort Worth. The creature is often described as a "part-man, part-goat" with scales and long clawed fingers.
The Bear Lake Monster is a being appearing in folklore near Bear Lake, on the Utah–Idaho border.
The Lake Worth Lagoon is a lagoon located in Palm Beach County, Florida. It runs parallel to the coast, and is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by barrier beaches, including Palm Beach Island. The lagoon is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by two permanent, man-made inlets.
The Creature Walks Among Us is a 1956 American monster horror film and the third installment of the Creature from the Black Lagoon series from Universal Pictures, following the previous year's Revenge of the Creature. The film is directed by John Sherwood, the long-time Universal-International assistant director, in his directorial debut. His role as director was partly facilitated by Jack Arnold, who had directed the first two films in the series, who recommended Sherwood to Universal.
The Gill-man—commonly called the Creature—is the main antagonist of the 1954 black-and-white science fiction film Creature from the Black Lagoon and its two sequels Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).
In Canadian folklore, Cressie is the nickname given to an eel-like lake monster said to reside in Crescent Lake, Robert's Arm, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The name is a portmanteau of Crescent Lake and Nessie, the nickname given to the Loch Ness Monster. The monster has been described as resembling a large dark brown eel around 15 feet in length with a long, sleek body and as "looking long and shiny, and having a fish-like head." Claims of Cressie being sighted began in the 1950s, and continue to the present day.
The extensive and persistent impact on media and popular culture of Creature from the Black Lagoon began even before it was seen in theaters. To publicize the release of the film in 1954, Ben Chapman, in costume, introduced the Gill-Man to the public on live television in The Colgate Comedy Hour with Abbott and Costello.
