On November 12, 1933, Hugh Gray took the first known photograph of a monster supposedly living in Loch Ness in Scotland.
The legend of Nessie has been around for many years: Roman legionnaires were struck by a Celtic stone image of a mysterious giant long-necked animal that looks like a seal. We propose to look at Nessie and other mystical animals, in the existence of which cryptozoologists so want to believe.
Loch Ness monster. In the 20th century, it was after Gray's photograph of 1933 that they began to talk about Nessie, and the story was instantly picked up by the newspapers. Later, one scientist tried to connect the multiple mentions of Nessie after 1933 with the fact that people were photographing the bathing elephants of a traveling circus, which was actually traveling there at that time.
The photo shows the most replicated image of Nessie, the so-called "surgeon photo", taken in 1934 by the physician Kenneth Wilson. He claimed to have gone bird-watching and took a picture of the monster by accident.
However, in 1994 it was proven that it was a fake, made by him in a company with three accomplices. It is interesting that one of them confessed to what he had done back in 1975, but the noise was not raised - everyone believed in the honesty of Wilson, who repeatedly argued that he himself did not believe in Nessie and therefore had no motives for deception.
In 1960, aerial photography of the lake recorded the movement of a huge creature in it. In 2005, it was proven to be a foamy boat trail. Sonar studies have also been carried out in deep Loch Ness, which indeed revealed the existence of strange large moving objects.
Proponents believe Nessie is a relict plesiosaur. Opponents of the theory say that floating logs of a special kind of pine and tectonic effects (waves, bubbles and noise) are taken for a monster. And besides, there simply would not be enough food in the lake for such an animal, but the existence of the monster is obviously beneficial to the locals in terms of attracting tourists.
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Bigfoot is a legendary humanoid shaggy creature, a relict hominid, supposedly found in the mountains and forests of different regions of the world. It is also called yeti, bigfoot, sasquatch, etc. Many people believe in the existence of Bigfoot: today, for example, boxer Nikolai Valuev has taken up the search for the Yeti.
The Soviet scientist Boris Porshnev paid much attention to the topic of the existence of a relict hominid - the USSR was generally the only country in the world where the problem of finding a yeti was considered at the highest state level.
In the photo: the alleged footprint of Bigfoot, found by researcher Zhanna Kofman in the North Caucasus in March 1978.
However, most modern scientists do not believe in its existence: despite the many enthusiasts and expeditions, there is not a single unequivocal confirmation.
Photo: still from a 1967 film in Northern California. The film allegedly captured a female Bigfoot. Later, relatives of the authors said that she was portrayed by a man in a monkey costume, but no direct evidence was provided.
Other animals and their tracks are mistaken for Bigfoot, and in addition, in the highlands, many begin to see Yeti as a result of the so-called mountain sickness. In folklore, as well as in art and literature, including the ancients - even the Bible, there are a lot of references to the shaggy humanoid creature. Yeti is extremely popular in pop culture today.
The Gevodan Beast is a wolf-like creature that terrorized the inhabitants of the French province of Gevaudan from 1764 to 1767. During this time, about 250 terrible attacks on people were committed there, 123 of the victims died. Eyewitnesses described the Gevodan beast as an unusual looking wolf the size of a cow. The beast never fell into traps and escaped raids. He often left his victims beheaded, and he always preferred people to cattle. Many believed that the inhabitants of Gevodan were killed by a werewolf.
Photo: an 18th century engraving depicting the Zhevodan beast.
Interestingly, the Gevodan beast was killed by a silver bullet, and the hunter, setting off to hunt for the beast, took a Bible with him, and the man-eating wolf allegedly found him reading it. After the killing of the wolf, the carcass was taken from city to city to calm the villagers, and the scarecrow was later given to the king of France.
In the stomach of the monster, they found the forearms of a little girl who died the day before - he really ate people. Some modern cryptozoologists believe that it was not a wolf, but a saber-toothed tiger. There is also an opinion that it was a particularly large hybrid of a wolf and a dog, because hybrids, unlike wolves, are not afraid of people.
In the photo: an engraving depicting a stuffed animal of the killed Gevodan beast at the court of King Louis XV.
Olgoy-khorhoi is a legendary worm supposedly living in the deserts of Mongolia. It is believed to kill livestock and people. The writer Ivan Efremov was in Mongolia, he was very interested in the legend of the olgoe-khorhoi, and this creature is often found in his works. Olgoi-khorhoy is also in the books of the Strugatsky brothers. Today, many believe that the olgoi-khorhoi are two-walkers, whose ancestors had poisonous glands.
Kappa is a mythical Japanese merman. Most often, the kappa is presented as a cross between a frog and a turtle, but sometimes it is depicted as a monkey. The mouthguard has three anus, and its body emits a fishy odor. The mouthguard has a saucer on top of its head that gives it supernatural strength and must always be filled with water.
Kappa is a dangerous prankster, his pranks range from the relatively innocent, such as farting loudly to farting under a woman's kimono, and there are such scoundrels who steal crops, rape girls and kidnap children. Often times, the kappa pulls people into the water and then pulls their insides out through the anus.
Today, kappa is a subject of study for cryptozoologists. The remains of kappa are trying to forge using the remains of other animals - stingrays, monkeys, otters. The kappa look is extremely popular in Japan. He is often clothed in a sculptural form or made into a hero of anime and computer games.
The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature allegedly living in Pine Barrens, a wooded area in the southern American state of New Jersey. According to legend, the Leeds witch mother gave birth to her thirteenth child and he turned into a winged devil-like creature.
The devil made the most noise from January 16 to January 23, 1909 - then thousands of people announced meetings with the creature. Scientists believe that the belief in this monster is due to the general sparseness of the Pine Barrens and the fact that many robbers lived there, many of whom could greatly run wild and frighten travelers.
There are also versions that the traces of mice were taken for the tracks of the devil - the letter P, and that these were large horned owls. The mythical cryptid is more than real in American pop culture, even the New Jersey NHL team is named after him.
Many cryptozoologists believe that there are still pterosaurs on Earth. Most often, meetings with them are announced in Africa and near the island of Umboi near Papua, sometimes providing photos and videos. But most often they can easily identify a frigate bird whose silhouette really resembles a pterosaur.