Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths

This book attempts to provide an overview of the entire field of cryptozoology, which is an ambitious undertaking for so short a book. In fact, it often looks more like a demolition job: it seems in places like a Martian fighting machine stalking through a Surrey village, levelling the familiar landmarks of cryptozoology with heat-ray glances. At least the author has the right to survey the field: he is no Chris Packham, a television presenter who in 1998, on the basis of two documents concerning the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, announced not only that he had 'killed sasquatch' but that he had 'put a stake through the bleeding heart of cryptozoology itself'. Darren Naish, a qualified palaeontologist and a blogger on tetrapod zoology, has been involved in cryptozoology for over two decades; he has written books inspired by the subject, attended and spoken at conferences, published papers relevant to the field, and is on at least polite terms with many of its leading figures. Indeed, the book could be taken as part of his continuing attempt to define his relationship with cryptozoology in general and cryptids in particular.It should be recognised at once that much of the assault is entirely justified, and has to receive a regretful nod as childhood favourites are undermined or abolished. There are not even bad reasons for supposing that sauropod dinosaurs have ever wallowed in the swamps of the Congo. The ropen proves to be nothing more than a muddle of confused and mis-translated accounts, seized on by Creationists with their own agenda and sensationalised by the media. I would add, as my own observation, that the iconic flying snake of Namibia has every appearance of being produced by an attack of epilepsy. Even the sea serpent, if not quite demolished, suffers extensive damage; the massive Heuvelmans book "In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents" looks like a study in carefully documented confusion, with a multitude of sightings shoe-horned into categories too many to be plausible and too few to hold their multifarious contents. There are beyond doubt large unknown creatures in the sea, and some of them have been sighted; but, as the author would put it, the data is submerged in such a volume of noise that it is extraordinarily difficult to extract it.Even if cryptids do not exist, the data of cryptozoology does. So how does the author suggest the data be treated? Naish favours the folklore approach, in which man is regarded as a myth-making animal who interprets any unexplained sighting in sea, sky or lake in terms of the prevailing motifs of his particular culture. This view, following the work of Michael Meurger, is deployed to its fullest extent in the chapter on lake monsters; although it is also suggested later that lake monsters are the attempts of adults to scare children away from the dangers of open water, a suggestion which inevitably reminds anyone of the right age and nationality of the 'Lonely Waters' public information film of the 1970s. There is a implication here of the Jungian collective unconscious with the most emblematic cryptids regarded as archetypes, though this may not be the author's intention. Such an idea might actually have strengthened his case, and explained why similar motifs are common across so many different cultures; and I can't resist pointing out that the Animal is one of Jung's archetypes, and that the Lake is not only an archetype but an image of the unconscious itself.Naish believes converting cryptozoology into a branch of cultural studies would make it 'far more interesting', though it may not be obvious why a subject becomes more interesting when stripped of its subject matter. The subject so defined is to be known as post-cryptid cryptozoology; this inevitably suggests the baneful influence of post-modernism, with cryptids reduced to floating signifiers to which any reader is free to attach the meaning they wish, and the source material valued as a basis for Ph.D.s in semiotics. There is even the suggestion that people who persist in searching for flesh and blood animals should be distinguished as 'cryptozoological literalists', though if we are to have this dichotomy I intend to identify myself as a 'cryptozoological realist', and use the term 'cryptozoology-lite' for the content-free version. However, we should abandon cryptozoology to the folklorists only when we have strong reason to do so, and it seems to me that the root-and branch attack goes beyond what can be justified. A great deal is made of the unreliability of humans as data recorders. This is not a new observation: Sir Walter Raleigh, while imprisoned in the Tower, attempted to write a history of the world. He abandoned it after viewing a brawl in the courtyard; the conflicting accounts even of a current event convinced him that no reliable history could be written. Nevertheless, history is still written, and human testimony is not worthless, even if it contradicts our assumptions: on the only cryptid sighting in which I have been involved, both witnesses gave an account of the creature which agreed in the essentials (though it's worth stressing that their accounts were taken within less than an hour of the sighting). He is rightly scathing of North American hominology (the search for sasquatch) which often appears to be a free-fire zone for fraud, personal abuse, credulity, outright insanity and financial exploitation; it is unfortunate (though I have no doubt that they are all men of deep personal integrity) that three of the many figures involved in sasquatch research have the names Crook, Swindler and Moneymaker. Like him, I have no patience with the multitude of anthropoid species - they range from dwarfs to giants that could go three rounds with King Kong - that popular writers have asserted to live within the borders of the United States. Even here however he sometimes goes beyond not only the facts but even his own account of them: after giving a fair account of the Patterson-Gimlin film, and pointing out both that no fraud has ever been demonstrated and that no attempt to replicate the film has ever been successful, we are told later on that the film is 'almost certainly a hoax'.Neverthless, Naish is right: cryptozoology is being transformed. The flying snakes and Ninki-Nankas of its exuberant adolescence are being replaced by a concentration on the core topic: human evolution. This grown-up cryptozoology is receiving the assistance of real grown-up scientists, though at present as individuals rather than institutions. He notices the progress that is being made in the study of the Sumatran orang-pendek, a cryptid which is manifestly an ape but one of considerable interest because of its bipedal habit. Where the author fails most drastically is in his total lack of engagement with the vast body of Russian hominology. The almas (or almasty), when it occurs at all, is given the bog-standard 'cultural motif' treatment. This won't do. When Marie-Jeanne Koffmann began her investigations in the Caucasus in the 1960s she received over three hundred accounts; some were from shepherds and farmers, some from soldiers, geologists and academics. We can suppose that the latter at least received the sort of fantasy-free Marxist-Leninist education that Gradgrind himself would have approved of, uncontaminated by any trace of folklore. When Porshnev began his studies of the same topic in the 1950s he was told that the study of legends was no business of Soviet science, and the proper people were the folklorists; the dialectical materialism of the 1950s joins hands with the post-modernism of the 21st century! Neither do the descriptions suffer from the multiplicity of types that present such a problem with the sasquatch; anybody comparing the descriptions in Bayanov's "In the footsteps of the Russian Snowman" will be struck by their consistency. As for hoaxing: it would be an unusually bold man, in the age of Stalin, who attempted a joke with the local Commissioner of State Security.There is no space here to even mention the evidence that has been accumulated from across the old Soviet Union: enough to say that as well as the usual sightings, casts and hair samples we have examinations of two bodies, one living and one dead, by medical officers of the Red Army, and the extraordinary case of an almas called Zana who lived in a Caucasus village for many years in the 19th century. (Naish makes a small but not trivial mistake here: we have only the skull of her son Khwit, not Zana herself. If only we did!) Zana gave the best possible proof of her humanity by bearing several children, all of whom were themselves fertile. Nevertheless her description (physical and mental) is of a creature in no way matching any known human type. Naish makes good use of a valuable scientific principle called parsimony, or Occam's razor, to prefer explanations that require no new assumptions - except perhaps witness error - to those that introduce a new species. However there is an equally valuable principle summarised in a remark by Aristotle: we should prefer a probable impossible to an improbable possible. I take this to mean that Occam's razor should not become Occam's procrustean bed, in which data is stretched and interpreted beyond all reason to fit our assumptions. Sooner or later, we must introduce a new hypothesis, even if it involves an extension of our idea of the possible; as Einstein would have put it, 'everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler'. We have just such a hypothesis from geneticist Bryan Sykes: that Zana was indeed human, but from a very ancient lineage, one which left Africa before we did (and presumably before language evolved). I suggest that we now have everything we can reasonably expect: a reliable body of data, a field of investigation and a viable working hypothesis. Not enough for a binomial and a place in the textbooks, but more than enough for a a good solid boots-on-the-ground investigation.There is a basic problem as to which field, cryptozoology and cultural studies, is regarded as framing, defining and illuminating the other. Does folklore provide a means of interpreting and explaining the data collected on cryptids, or is it cryptozoology that adds a new dimension to folklore by showing the reality on which stories are based? There is an optical illusion called the 'faces-vase' drawing, in which you can either see two black fields defining a white vase, or a white space defining two silhouettes of faces. The viewer decides which is the image and which the negative space. You pays your money and you takes your choice; but there is at least one consideration which can guide that choice. If cryptozoologists are investigating that which does not exist, they lose only a little time and money, and return with more stories into the bargain; if we assume from the start that there is nothing to find out there, we lose even the theoretical possibility of finding it if it does exist. I know my choice.

Darren's ebook comes after a similar publication from 2012 entitled "Abominable Science!" by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero. That book was praised to the skies by the sceptics but when a closer look was taken by those who did not have a vested interest in the book, things began to fall apart. My review of that book can be found on amazon.Is this book any better? I would say it is, though the presented "reality" against the "myth" of the Loch Ness Monster is again far from conclusive. Compared to "Abominable Science!", there is more attempts to be original in the thinking behind sceptical interpretations of Nessie cases. However, it has to be said, that a lot of that thinking seemed to originate from sources other than Darren.The book begins with an assertion that the diversity of creatures described points more to human imagination than actual animals awaiting discovery. The book seems to present us with an either/or choice here, but it is not as simple as that. My alternative opinion is that differences in monsters described is down to various factors.Firstly, witnesses do not always get the details right. Even though they may have seen something large and alive, the finer the detail described, the greater the room for error. This is especially so at greater distances and other conditions which disturb a clear view. Also, it is clear that some of the 1800 or so accounts will be tall tales. If you have someone fabricating their account, then they could describe almost anything that muddies the waters and corrupts the database.Roy Mackal, in his book, "The Monsters of Loch Ness", took the position that 90% of all sightings were fake or misinterpretation. I do not personally think the percentage is that high, but if it was that close, it is no surprise that non-monster accounts contribute to an unclear picture.Again, the King Kong film is raised as an influence. I covered this in my review of "Abominable Science!". Suffice to say it is not a convincing theory. Some mistakes began to surface as I read through the book. For example, in "showing how things were afoot at the loch at the time" before the famous Spicer report, Darren mentions the 1932 Fordyce land sighting. However, that story was not made public until 1990 and had nothing to do with the mood "at the time".The aforementioned Spicer story is examined and I wish to point out an example of exaggerated narrative from Darren. Of this sighting he says:"Over the years, the description became increasingly sensational. It started out as 2– 2.5 m in length but gradually increased to 9m."Unfortunately, this is the kind of subliminal language that implants the wrong kind of impression into the mind of the reader. Darren appears to be trying to demonstrate that monster stories grow with the telling. However, he is completely wrong. The first account from the 4th August 1933 does indeed state the size of the creature as being 6 to 8 feet. However, the "gradual" part is not true.The truth rather lies in Rupert T. Gould's book, "The Loch Ness Monster and Others", published about 10 months after the Spicer event. Gould quotes a letter to him from George Spicer which states:"After having ascertained the width of the road, and giving the matter mature thought in every way, I afterwards came to the conclusion that the creature I saw must have been at least 25 feet in length."It's as simple as that. George Spicer re-evaluated based on the width of the "ruler" the monster had been seen crossing over - the road. Why Darren Naish omitted this detail is not clear. After all, he quotes Gould in regard to this case. In the context of such inaccuracies, I noticed one withering reviewer of this book on Amazon declare this:"Anyone who actually believes in the Loch Ness monster ... should read this - it would help them to grow up."Now I don't know if this reviewer could even find Loch Ness on a map, but one gets the impression that such reviewers have a picture of "believers" running to their caves in fear of such cutting sceptical books exposing their so-called psychological deficiencies. The truth is that a lot of these reviewers know little about Loch Ness and its Monster and assume these like-minded authors speak with unerring accuracy on Loch Ness matters. They don't. Period.Whereas Loxton and Prothero seemed to not go beyond 1994 in sceptical Nessie thinking, Darren presents more modern interpretations - such as the famous Hugh Gray and Peter O'Connor photographs. He suggests Hugh Gray photographed a swan and Peter O'Connor used his canoe to fake the well known hump picture.Well, I looked at the Gray and O'Connor theories and put a bullet through them elsewhere - just google for my articles "Is the Hugh Gray photograph a Swan?" and "The Peter O'Connor Photograph (Part III)". Advocates of a large, exotic species in Loch Ness need have no fear of such theorising by sceptics. In fact, I enjoy dismantling their weak theories and this book was no exception.Now I mentioned that Darren was not the actual source of these swan and canoe theories. That honour goes to long time Nessie sceptic, Dick Raynor. How much of Darren's treatise on the Loch Ness Monster is actually his own or others such as Dick Raynor is hard to ascertain, but these easily challenged theories were known to me well before Darren's book.Another place where Naish relies on Raynor is the aforementioned Fordyce land sighting. We are told that, in fact, what Mr. Fordyce saw that day was a donkey carrying a dead deer bagged by some hunting party. I atatch to this review a picture of a horse carrying a bagged stag compared to the animal that Lt. Cmd. Fordyce claimed to have seen.Yes, I can see what they are driving at here ... not. Some of the interpretations of the sceptic baffle me. I admit the Fordyce creature is strange - even by Loch Ness Monster standards. But, even allowing for memory lapses on the part of Fordyce, nobody should accept such a weak explanation. Better to say nothing and take a neutral position.I could go on with the problems with this Nessie section of Darren's book. His handling of the folklore of the Loch Ness Water Horse is unsatisfactory. You can read my introduction to this theme under the article "The Folklore of An Niseag". His dismissal of pre-1933 accounts is, of course, vital to the framework of the sceptical theory since it relies on Nessie being a creation of the Great Depression years.Moreover, his description of Richard Franck's 17th century "floating island" at Loch Ness, as a man-made raft runs completely counter to what even Franck theorised about this strange object from 1658.A thought did cross my mind as to whether Dick was grooming Darren as his successor. After all, Dick is now moving into his late sixties, as is Adrian Shine. Despite our best intentions, old age will eventually put a stop to any argument or debate one may wish to engage in and the question of succession seems to be a serious question for Loch Ness sceptics.As I survey the online and published domains, I see no clear and worthy successors. Perhaps Darren is seen as "The One", but in my view, once Dick and Adrian get out their slippers and pipe, Loch Ness scepticism will go down the plug hole.