The Occult Section

If you’ve been on the internet at all the past few days, you’ve no doubt seen the stories about the capybara, the world’s largest rodent, roaming Paso Robles in California. Now, while there is nothing paranormal about this, it does bring to mind reports of other out of place animals that most “experts” dismiss and delegate to the realm of the paranormal (or the hallucinatory). But the truth is, animals have been reported in areas they shouldn’t be living in for many, many years.

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  Yes, I'm aware that I'm perpetuating the stereotype of people from Brooklyn being tough and confrontational. You got a problem with that?

  Panthers and Mountain Lions have been seen all over the United States, even in places where thay have been long thought to be extinct. I recently blogged about a cougar being killed in Connecticut, after they were declared extinct in the region.

• Phantom kangaroos have been seen in the United States since the 1960s. The kangaroos, as most everyone knows, are indigenous to Australia, not suburban America.
• Alligators in the Sewers is perhaps one of New York City’s most famous urban legends. And there is truth to it. Not sure if there still are crocs under the city streets, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve heard some strange stories of what is actually right under our feet here in the Big Apple.
• Monkeys and apes are quite often reported in the United States, and North America has no indigenous apes or monkeys (unless you count Bigfoot). These sighting go back to the 1800s, and are usually conveniently explained away by skeptics as circus escapees, as are most of the other animals on this list.
• A Small Elephant was seen roaming the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, NY back in May of 1979, but was never captured. This story is one of my favorites, as I am a native of Bay Ridge and live there to this day!

Technorati Tags: bay ridge, bigfoot, brooklyn, cougar, cryptozoology, elephant, humor, media, mountain lion, new york, News, panther, paranormal, phantom kangaroo, thoughts

Back in March, I did a post about how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had declared that there were no longer any mountain lions in the eastern U.S. Yet people claim to see mountain lions and cougars all the time here. The official explanation is that they escaped animals from zoos or what have you, but the “zoo escapee” explanation is to cryptozoology as “weather balloon” is to ufology. It’s a blanket explanation that skeptics use to explain away sightings of big cats or apes in the cases of Bigfoot sighting. usually though, there are never any zoos or circuses that are reporting lost animals. And even if there are, one escaped animal doesn’t account for dozens or hundreds of sightings over many years. But now comes news that a mysterious mountain lion was killed by a motorist in Connecticut.

BOSTON (Reuters) – A mountain lion was killed just 70 miles from New York City early on Saturday morning, and officials were trying to determine if it was the same big cat spotted a week ago roaming the posh suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut.

The 140-pound mountain lion was hit by a small SUV on a highway in Milford, Connecticut, early Saturday morning, and died from its injuries. The driver was unhurt, officials said.

With no native mountain lion population in the state, “it’s possible and even likely” it is the same enormous cat with a long tail spotted last weekend in the New York City suburb some 30 miles away, said Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Dennis Schain.

The large cat was transferred to a state environmental facility where authorities will use the photos, paw prints and other evidence collected near the three Greenwich sightings to determine if it is the same animal.

Traveling between the two cities would be a jog for this large cat known to roam extensively, even up to a couple hundred miles in a day, said Schain.

The eastern mountain lion was officially declared extinct earlier this year, prompting authorities to suspect the animal spotted in the urban jungle of the New York City metropolitan area, had either escaped or was released from captivity.

The closest confirmed population of mountain lions is in Missouri, half way across the country.

Mountain lions, also known as a cougar or puma, are lone animals that in the east primarily preyed on white-tailed deer.

“By and large, cougars want to stay as far away from people as they possibly can because they are so solitary,” said Bob Wilson, a co-founder of The Cougar Network, an organization devoted to tracking and researching the animal.

Wilson said mountain lions like to hunt in the shadows and it would be a very remote chance to encounter the cat.

The eastern cougar was hunted and trapped “relentlessly” and gone from much of the region by the late 1800s, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Around the same time its habitat was destroyed by deforestation and the population of its prey declined.

It will be interesting to see if any local zoo or circus claims this to be an escaped animal of theirs. I’m guessing nobody will come forward.

Technorati Tags: bigfoot, cougar, cryptozoology, extinct, mountain lion, News, thoughts, u.s. fish and wildlife service

One interesting aspect of cryptozoology is animals that are known to have existed, but are now thought to be extinct. In some cases, such as the coelacanth, the animal is discovered alive and well, even after having been thought extinct for millions of years. In other cases, such as the thylacine (or tasmanian tiger), and animal is thought to be extinct, even though unconfirmed sightings continue. Scientists tend to give these sightings more credence than Bigfoot sightings, for obvious reasons. It’s easier to believe that some remnants of a known species still exist than to admit that there might still be a population of large apes that have remained undetected.  A big part of cryptozoological lore is that of big cats being seen where there shouldn’t be big cats. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has done a lot of in-depth research into big cats, in such books as Mysterious America. Most of these “phantom panther” sightings have been attributed to the eastern cougar, bobcats, and other large felines, and the excuse for them being around is usually the stereotypical “escaped circus animal” explanation. But now, the Associated Press is reporting that the eastern cougar is now being officially declared extinct.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Federal wildlife biologists have declared the eastern cougar to be extinct.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded there are no longer any wild populations of mountain lions in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s.

Wednesday’s declaration paves the way for the eastern cougar to be removed from the endangered species list.

There have been numerous sightings of mountain lions from Maine to South Carolina. But the wildlife service contends those cougars were either escaped or released captives, or came from the West or from South America.

The agency’s decision to declare the eastern cougar extinct does not affect the status of the Florida panther, another endangered wildcat.

The fact that the cougar is being declared extinct does not mean that there are no longer any of these animals around. It just means that we don’t have any proof that they are still around. And I for one think they should remain on the endangered species list, just to be safe. But big cat sightings have been going on for years, and I won’t be surprised if people keep on reporting sightings of cougars in the United States.

Technorati Tags: cryptozoology, eastern cougar, extinct, loren coleman, mountain lion, News, paranormal, people, thoughts