When a Creature's Not a Creature

From PHANTOMS AND MONSTERS:

Mystery Sea Creature Has Experts Baffled

The “monster” was snapped off Seacombe Ferry at 9am yesterday by photographer Mark Harrison.

Paul Renolds, from the Blue Planet Aquarium, who studied the photos, said: “It is virtually impossible to actually identify, but this is the time of year when large numbers of basking sharks, the second largest shark species in the world after whale sharks, head towards waters off the Isle of Man.”
Sea creature captured in the Mersey by Mark Harrison

He added: “If it is not a basking shark, it could be a smaller species of whale or a dolphin because there are around 23 different species in UK waters.” - liverpoolecho

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(top: basking shark / bottom: a species of dolphin)

I'm drawn to talk about this not just because of Mark Harrison's awesome pictures themselves but of the sinking feeling I get when I read Paul Renold's making the obvious observation that the photos are of basking sharks or some kind of fucked up dolphin. Based on my reaction, I feel the engaging mystery of these images are devalued by Paul Renolds. He 'ruins' them. Before reading his explanation you look at them, especially the top one with the open mouth, and you think, of course, of that famous JAWS image of the seventies:

But what power did JAWS have--we knew it was a great white--that the basking shark explanation doesn't? Sharks hunt us, is one reason. We've all swam at one time or another in opaque water and imagined the icky things that could be about to grab us at any moment. A plankton eater or friendly dolphin doesn't have that food-chain cachet. But trumping even a giant shark is an... unknown. As all good monster movie makers know, the creature loses much of its power to scare once it's identified, or worse, seen in the daylight.

I noticed even watching CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON numerous times, that scientists belittle nature by naming it:

As the gang gets deeper down the snaky rivers of the Amazon, the film’s environmental message begins to emerge. We see Kay standing on deck, gazing out at the surrounding foliage, listening to the unearthly yowls of the wildlife concealed therein. It’s a primal scene—woman “tuning in” to the frequency of ultra-primitive nature—and she seems both horrified and thrilled. David comes up from behind and when she mentions that the howling unnerves her, he promptly dispels the mystery:  “those are guyra monkeys,” he says. He’s the guy who has to bring the map into the wilderness, and name every plant while his impatient kids stand bored, waiting for something to happen

In the weird science of the film, and indeed of all such films, the others don’t believe Mark and David when they surface with reports of the gill-man. Eyewitness testimony can be considered “fact” in a court of law but means nothing to science, which cripples itself through its dismissal of everything “subjective” as if there was something that wasn’t. Carl Sagan waved away stacks of eyewitness UFO testimony while lamenting the lack of “proof” of alien existence. Our collective disbelief about things beyond our comprehension is itself beyond comprehension. This shows the fundamental impossibility of trying to think about nature objectively from inside an organic brain (sort of like trying to perform eye surgery on yourself without a mirror). Underwater photographs David took of the beast are hurriedly developed, but they end up revealing no gill man. Then Lucas tells the story of the man-fish, which he heard from Crazy Booly. Whit Bissell makes a snide remark. Here they are investigating a fossil of a half man/half fish, two esteemed scientists claim to have encountered just such a thing, and Whit Bissell dismisses Lucas’s story instantly as fiction! (Scarlet Street, #46 2003)

In their rush to name things, to nail down the phenomena of the world to names like 'dolphin', science tampers down the flames of insight --we don't see the unknown beast as its own weird thing, as if we're discovering it our first day in Narnia. And isn't that what draws us to cryptozoology - that giddy sense of the unknown--the ability to see things as they are and not wedged into kingdom and phyla-- before we fall back into our pre-set responses? 

If an intrepid explorer finds bigfoot and then some scientist comes along and says that's not bigfoot that's a chimpazee familiaris -- a homo emanculus -- the mystery vanishes instantly. Sure there's the question "what's an ape doing in North America? Why haven't we found them sooner? But it's not as intriguing as the 'what the hell is it?' and 'is it even there?' questions of before. If the hairs from the chupacabra come back from scientific analysis as merely a 'dog' the mystery, as far as the science channel documentary is concerned, is over.  But mystery is not a' 'problem' - it's not a detriment to science to have an unknown mythic monster on the loose. It's good for the community, gives them something to talk about over spooky campfires; and just because they made up a word for it doesn't mean it's not a monster. In a way science feels it still needs to soothe the savage still cowering at the noises in the dark, "ah, it's not a demon it's a lupine familiaris." But whether we still need this is up to debate. In fact, I'd argue the reverse.

One of the main benefits of LSD is the way in inhibits neurotransmitters which recognize audio and visual stimuli --a process elementary to survival, but highly deadening to our sense of being alive to the universe. This 'blinders' effect tunes out 90% of the stimuli around us. A rising sun can be akin to a visit from God before the click in the brain that says 'no, bro, that's just the sun' - instantly we're taken back to science class, trying to stay awake as we learn about atoms - the sun is thus associated with boredom and the magic is lost. Maybe instead of jumping to call something 'just a basking shark' these scientists can make a big show of excitement, and rush to the scene and pretend a real find is there in these pictures, withholding their knowledge of the basking shark and letting us draw our own conclusions. But that would mean admitting the right brain needs attention, and science--a notoriously left-brained lot--is as wary of admitting the right brain's import just as we in the right brain--artists, intuitives, psychics, mystics-- are wary of admitting the left's import. As long as there's that rift, bad blood will continue to flow when science pounces on a phenomena like those cool photos above, labeling them this or that before we have a chance to get excited about the true wonder of nature. It's not nature's fault. Nature didn't label that monster a shark, a dolphin, or anything. If we want to call it a dinosaur we are not too far off. Sharks are as old as time itself. The problem in the end is one of semiotics. Language is both our prison and our escape route. Here's how I ended that Creature article:

The concept of Man at war with the environment is as old as history, and it is only recently with our advanced technology that we are put in the position of having to act as caretaker for what once threatened to devour us kicking and screaming on a nightly basis. Early ancestors would surely have been comforted thinking that one day their distant progeny would be able to master the animal kingdom and wipe the wolf and the tiger almost into extinction. Now however, Man, in his neverending quest to label, quantify and understand is actually destroying everything he touches. In trying to unravel the mystery of nature, he unravels himself. The swamp and the stars are the same, they are his own unknowable self. He is blasting rotenone into his own face and staggering down the street of evolution like a stoned tourist, robbing everything he touches of its holy power. 

 

SP:11 1897 Airships, and the Little Fellow in the Aurora, Texas Cemetery; Regan Responds

Erich Kuersten made many absolutely right on points about UFO research. He asks, using the Aurora, Texas case as his example, why residents of that town, science, etc. stonewall UFO researchers at a given point:

What is the reason for all the refusal to let science and ufology blunder in to try and prove the truth of the legend? Where does disrespect end and legit quest for understanding begin?

Of course we can broaden Erich’s question to all other UFO cases where this occurs, as well as paranormal and Fortean events like Bigfoot and other cryptid encounters, hauntings, etc. I think one reason this resistance to researchers “blundering in” is due to a fear of looking ridiculous. This fear runs so deep, it becomes far more important than answers or clues to Really Big Questions, like the nature of UFOs and the existence of aliens, or, Bigfoot, and so on. Fear of looking silly, gullible, or naive, of being hoaxed, or somehow taken in. Those fears loom over any truths that may be discovered.

As a side note and a bit off topic, look at the criticisms of researchers like Linda Moulton Howe. Howe, who has done significant work in the field of UFO and related research, like cattle mutilations, has been heavily trounced by others for her gullibility in some cases. Agreed, to a point, but so what? Do moments of hope, even gullibility in some cases, wipe out previous work, the data revealed? We’re human, regardless of philosophical stance on research, and when it comes to the soup that is Fortean-Esoteric-Paranormal-UFO stuff, we can’t afford to continue pretending things are so neat and tidy, clear and obvious. We are not objective beings, and we are often being played by forces we are barely aware of, and certainly don’t understand.



Erich writes:

Meanwhile, the evidence is already in and overwhelming if you're willing to accept it, to make the connections.

The evidence certainly is overwhelming, and we are reminded not to mistake evidence for proof. And yet, when one experiences UFOs, entities, Bigfoot, etc. for themselves, one can say that is proof. At least proof of something pretty huge; as to what that experience (craft, entity alien type being, Sasquatch, ghostly figure) is, can be further explored. Seeing a UFO with aliens inside, doesn’t necessarily “prove” there are non-human beings in spacecraft from other planets visiting earth. They could be fairies, Djinn, or government spooks. But they are, and they are most decidedly real. And sometimes, to quote Freud, a cigar is just a cigar.

Erich asks, of mystery and process:

Or to let somethings be a mystery?

I know Erich is asking this in context of UFOs and aliens, but I’ll extend this to other subjects as well, like Bigfoot. I accept that Bigfoot exists, even though I’ve never seen one. (Yet.) I accept it exists because I personally know many who tell me they have seen one, and I believe them. I also accept that the evidence points to its existence, and I have spent many years studying the stories of witnesses -- many who’ve had UFO and high strangeness events embedded within the Bigfoot encounter -- that I find fascinating. I may not believe everything literally, but I believe that, at the very least, a Sasquatch was seen, and in many cases, something profound occurred that extended the already profound experience of seeing a Bigfoot in the first place. I don’t need a body to prove Bigfoot exists, I don’t care if it’s ever proven it does, I don’t give a damn if science or the world finds this proof, especially if it means capturing or killing one. There is no -- NO -- justification for supporting a “kill” philosophy in regards to Bigfoot.

Likewise UFOs; first of all, they indeed exist. We see objects in the sky all the time. “Do UFOs exist?” is most decidedly the wrong question.

For myself, who’s seen several UFOs, experienced missing time, and all kinds of other high strangeness episodes, since childhood, involving UFOs and entities, I don’t need proof. I don’t need to justify or even explain. I don’t need to do anything. I am, however, compelled to explore, and also share. I'm not sure why,  it’s just part of the process. Take it or leave it, like it or not, believe me or don’t.

Erich asks us:

What do YOU believe? And in the end, do you really need everyone else to believe it first? Are you afraid to pick a truth and make the jump, to just answer your own multiple choice rather than spying on all your neighbor's papers?

More excellent questions posed by Erich. This is why I’m not bothered by the tricksters, hoaxers (well, I am to a small degree, but not by much), and more importantly, the  ones much of UFOlogy hold in disdain, like the contactees. Who knows if the paranormal Bigfoot witnesses are nuts, or the contactees were liars? Their experiences are simply too rich and complex to dismiss as simple deceits. A few out and out liars within the global experiences of the weird doesn’t justify the exclusion of these kinds of stories. And what of the UFO Police; those who demand that certain types of witnesses, researchers, theories and experiences be excluded -- shunned --from their would be tidy world of UFO research? 

It gets back to the ugly side of human nature, that fear of looking silly. Researcher A is serious, damnit, and he or she shall not be tainted by associating with researchers delving into reptilian encounters or channeling aliens or Contactees or psychic Bigfoot. These stories may be full of it, but, within those stories is something we are missing by rejecting them. And that is the deceitful, playful, sometimes dangerous, sometimes merely mischievous, force of the thing itself; the very UFO/Fortean phenomena Researcher A, along with the rest of us, are studying.

And then there’s another unpleasant side to human nature: arrogance. We get so stuck in our egos, our personas, our need to be right (rather, to appear to be right), that we simply won’t let others play.

A recent example of the need for control over theories and research was the thuggish antics of crop circle researchers Michael Glickman and Gary King, who demanded that Colin Andrews be removed from the list of presenters at the Power Places International Crop Circle Conference this past summer.  If the coordinators of the conference did not agree to dis-invite Colin Andrews, Glickman and King said they would not appear. What a sad and distressing combination of arrogance and fear.  Withholding information -- and possibilities -- from other researchers as well as the public is unethical. It clearly speaks to the fear within, as well as the fear of others -- you, me, us, -- to think for ourselves. (Rather than dis-invite Andrews and give in to Glickman and King, the conference directors canceled the conference altogether.)

So, we don’t get to exhume bodies, kill a Bigfoot, get invited into the halls of Big Science to play with their toys, and yet we continue to frantically grasp after proof, after things that will say I’m Right, You’re Clearly Deluded. Forgetting that such proof will never be enough, will never satisfy, will never end such experiences, and will never completely answer anything.

Dead Bigfoot body: how does that explain the high strangeness aspects of BF encounters? What of protections for the creature -- what kind of being is it, and how does it affect culture, religions? UFOs proven to be from, Mars? Are the countless other UFOs from Mars as well? Do we suddenly forget about the man made UFOs that are covertly and illegally operating in our skies, with ill intent? (social engineering, chemical warfare, etc.) This Holy Grail of Proof, once found and offered, will only reveal more questions, and we'll find, it really wasn't proof at all.

We are always in the front room, to use the anthropologist’s example. No matter how much we may think we’re in the know, there are many more rooms to explore. We move into one, or two, if we’re lucky, and told we’re “in.” Some of us believe that. Some of us refuse to believe there are more rooms; or that, those rooms are of no consequence. Those rooms are just the broom closets, not worth investigating. Well how do you know, if you haven't looked?

SP-8: Random Responses to Water Monsters, Clowns,Cannibals and Noticing

Clowns and Cannibals

Bruce  begins his post with the question:"What makes a creature monstrous to us?" I found it interesting Bruce used, among the many images he used in his post, a photo of a clown face. To my mind, a disturbing, creepy, unwholesome, garish and violent-vibe emitting image. I don't like clowns -- and I like them the less the older I get. It's almost an esoteric cliché to be afraid of clowns, though in my "Miss Toughy" mode, as my spouse sometimes calls me, I'll say I'm not afraid of the greasy smelly rude thugs dressed in ruffles and clashing colors, but I am very offended by them. I know what they're up to; I'm on to them. Moot point though; I don't trust them or like them, and there's obviously something about this visceral response to clowns that lives in many of us, for, as we know, our culture has expressed this  distaste and unease with creations like Stephen King's IT, and the movie Killer Clowns From Space, etc. In Fortean terms, the clown also lives, with weird stories of clowns in vans kidnapping children and harassing adults, for example. Some people find clowns funny and delightful Why is that? What causes others, like myself, to want to avoid and destroy the nasty things, while others don't?


On land, we humans don't face the creatures of the deep unless we go to them, but we keep ourselves busy with killing on land (and on the sea.)  Bruce wrote: 

"Of course as creative carnivores, we have a cultural affinity for making totemic demons out of the banal mask of frivolity that can unpredictably bite us on the jugular vein." 

Clowns are cute, yet they can turn on us. They have turned on us; and again, culture motifs reflect this. How many TV shows have you seen where the drunken, chain smoking, foul mouthed clown shows up and scares the little kids while making gross sexual passes at mom?

I no longer eat beef, pork, and most other animals, but many of us do. We happily go to fast food places and devour burgers, chicken, and other meats. We name our reststuratns after the dead animals we eat, we turn them into cartoons. We turn them into happy figures that are goofy, crazy, even, kind of dumb, and pleased to sacrifice themselves for our gratification. Are we afraid the cows, chickens, pigs, and lambs will rise up and attack us? Do we feel a collective and uneasy, submerged guilt at our greed, which is reflected in these cartoons and images of the stupid eating itself, the lunatic pig or cow? If the thing we kill for our pleasure is stupid, and even crazy, as well as damn happy to be slaughtered for our satisfaction, it's only fair to treat it so patronizingly.  It keeps at bay the fear that it will turn around and eat us. (Our fears may be becoming real; stories of animals gone mad, carnivore sheep, invading hordes, appear in news items more and more frequently.)

Water "Monsters"
We call the creatures seen in Loch Ness, Ogopogo, Lake Champlain and other watery worlds "monsters." These are as yet unknown -- or unaccepted/undiscovered -- by science, and so don't really exist, as far as offical paradigms go.  Yet for the many witnesses who've seen these creatures, they do exist. Like Bigfoot, who many have seen (many people I know, who've seen Bigfoot, sometimes more than once) the "monster" exists.  I also know someone who lived in British Colombia and saw Ogopogo once. Of all the people who've personally told me of their encounters with water creatures or Bigfoot, they've never used the word "monster." In thinking about seeing things in the water, or the woods, or in the skies, for that matter, I realize that the unfamiliar can morphed into something even more unfamiliar, as bruceleeeowe points out in his post. But we also want to make sense out of the weird appearing thing before us. I remember the first time I saw a bear in the woods. It was sitting up on its hind legs for a bit, then sat down, watching me. I was scared to death, not because it was a bear -- I was too stupid to know about the woods, bear danger and basic rules of camping at the time -- but because, since I'd never seen a bear in its natural habitat, and, didn't expect to see one, it took me a few moments to realize what it was. While I had heard about Bigfoot in somewhat vague terms, my mind didn't go there at all. I thought, at first, it was a dog. Specifically, a large German Shepherd. Then I realized, at age fifteen, alone in the woods, that that was kind of ridiculous.  So I kept watching it watching me, and then, after running over in my mind what the odd thing that's been watching me so intently could be, I realized: a bear. (And that's when I quickly but carefully got out of there.) 

Seeing weird things in the water; we wonder what they could be. Otters, eels, sturgeon, mistaken for "monsters." But a lot of us, even if not familiar with what's to be expected in nature, realize that the weird thing we're seeing is something mundane. It must be. And sometimes it is, but sometimes it just isn't. And we know it isn't. The excitable, naive, and outright delusional or liars aside, which account for some reported events, the reality is: we're often faced with something outside of that reality, which sounds paradoxical. We then try to make it into something we can understand and explain, or, ignore.

High Tech Hunting
Many "monster" hunters of the watery worlds are like the high tech ghost hunters (and Bigfoot hunters) we're inundated with: tons of equipment, lots of noise, and little to show at the end, which is often presented as "proof" or at least evidence that there is no lake monster, the building isn't haunted, or that Bigfoot is not about. It never seems to occur to these kinds of investigators that the Bigfoot, or the spirits, or the water creatures, have known of their coming long before they've arrived, and, either left the area, or, stuck around, hidden, all the while watching the researchers looking for the researched.

Eric Ouellet’s point about the paranormal being an innate part of UFO/cryptid, etc. phenomena is one that must be made again and again.  Everyone ignores this one, science, UFO researchers, crypto researchers, etc. No wonder we aren’t getting anywhere. The ones who do accept this are still, even now, on the fringes, even if they’re in the fringe. We're sort of on the fringe of the fringe. Sometimes this gets presented as a religious framing; usually Christian. Biblical UFO stuff, for example, which often just ticks people off. You’re either a Christian who’s superstitious and believes UFOs and other paranormal, Fortean phenomena is “the devil,” or you ignore anything that has a religious content. Somewhere there is “betwixt and between” area with all this stuff. For example, Phil Imbragno's and Turkish UFO researcher Farah Yurdozu's research into the Djinn.

Going back to my point about noisy, clanking high tech equipment approach to investigations and the always disappointing results of such investigations: Eric writes, that, along with ignoring the paranormal aspects of lake “monster” sightings, etc. such approaches are futile:

"The ones that really destroy paranormal phenomena are the “real” field investigators (anomalist or skeptic), armed with their cameras and sensors. The deep sonar exploration of the Loch Ness figuratively killed the phenomenon, and may only reappear when, perhaps, no one is paying any attention to it."

Contradiction: Elusive, Yet In Our Face
Weird stuff has been going on for thousands of years, co-existing, or co-operating, alongside us. Despite us, or because of us, or even independent of us. That is such an obvious reality, and yet, the human race still argues, ignores and vilifies such acknowledgment. Or, disguises it in attempts to control -- both “it” and us -- through science or religion. Both systems have doctrines and both have beliefs/agendas that present themselves as the only truth. Belief in a "god" or belief in no god/rationality.

And of UFO, Fortean, paranormal, crypto researchers? Many still reject the woo, the weird: personal accounts that involve dreams, (as Eric pointed out) or other nebulous type phenomena. Basically, it’s still a nuts and bolts system within the fringe world. Bigfoot researchers don’t want to hear about dematerializing Sasquatch or orb wielding creatures by landed UFOs, UFO researchers don’t want to hear about astral projections or other high strangeness, water monster investigators don’t want to know about stories of UFOs, MIBS, and strange dreams by the banks of Loch Ness.

Meanwhile, it all keeps happening. It all remains elusive. We interpret that elusiveness as being nonexistent, no there there. Which allows us to go on our way, as if nothing has happened. Or frustrates researchers, who sometimes give up because, as they often moan in despair concerning UFOs, “After sixty years, we still don’t have  an answer.”

There isn’t a simple, single answer. Maybe we aren’t listening. We decide what it is, and more importantly, what it couldn’t be, before we’ve begun. As long as this approach is the standard, we’ll stay stuck.

TCI-SP5- Responce to Lon's Post by Bruceleeeowe

Recently Mr. Lon has published a very fascinating post about bigfoots. There are various reports of encounter of Bigfoot or so called Sasquatch. Skeptics simply rebut these encounters without going into an extensive research programme. What explanation we can expect from skeptics more likely, is that these are mere 'mass hallucination' which comes from anecdotal stories. Granted, they are correct, what about dinosaurs? Why hasn't then anyone imagined dinosaurs( velociraptor or troodons) ever before eighteenth century? The answer is so simple since they hadn't seen it ever. Perhaps, this is why there are no anecdotal stories about velociraptor attacking on human colonies. My intention is pretty clear here. If something hasn't been seen,then it can't be invented. It is impossible to conjure up something out of thin air if basic elements are missing. Therefore, mythologies, tales etc, which mainstream science today discredit as mere fanta intentions our stone age ancestors' imagination-can't possibly all be unfounded inventions or mere figments of someone's imagination. Quite on contrary! Something had to there in the first place to act as catalyst, the basic elements that sparked the story. Something happened to our stone agers that compelled them to tie it into a legend. The bigfoot encounters are common not only in USA but also in Himalayan peaks. There are various encounters of bigfoot, reported by those who were sent there as a part of Everest expeditions. I'm not going to write their story as Mr. Lon did. In his post Lon says that he refutes the case of bigfoot being something like that of coelacanth, manipulating the explanation to so called interdimensional being. I ask him to answer the question of why. He argued that with current technology we can sweep our eyes to every corner of woods. I'm politely disagree with him on that. In next paragraph he argues that we have FLRI cameras which can detect anything which is warmer than its environment. Agreed, we have such miracles of science. The infrared cameras are simply based on a principle and that is so called Stephen's radiation law. To detect something from infrared cameras there must have been some radiations coming from relatively warmer bodies. What if these are living in some deep naturally formed tunnels or something like underground IGLOU. Probably no radiation will come out of such tunnels and reading from cameras in simple word would be ' nothing detected'. I ask him how many times have we sent our explorers lassed with such detection equipments. Who is here who has collaborated with google to search for Sasquatch? The answer is 'none'. I've much explained the case in my lake monster post, which is still in draft. Granted, they are extraterrestrials explorers. Now big question is that what kind of propulsion methodology are they using? Okay, if they have implemented the technologies about which we talk only in theories like wormholes, casimir effect, black hole propulsion etc, it would simply acquire high energy densities(more than 10^27 joules/m3) which would be easily detectable and leave macroscopic traces which would be easily identifiable. So if they are real extraterrestrials or interdimensional being, where are the traces? That's why I always refute this theory with extreme politeness. There are many reports from everest expeditors which let's know that bigfoot is creature with intelligence slightly higher than chimpanzee. I'll try to make a full post to end of this weekend or so. Thanks.

SP4-Writer's Influence- Bruceleeeowe

Hello, nice to see everyone's contribution and it was really interesting to read how respected writers were influenced somehow! BTW, I haven't seen life as much as all of you have already, so I can't say what inspired me to be what I'm. I think physics has been entangled with quantum biological processes during evolution of my organic brain, much programmed to think in a scientific, logistic and pragmatical way. My brain is conscious for last sixteen years and still exploring how universe was originated and is there extraterrestrial life etc? And that's all to say. Thanks.