Cattle mutilations back
Ranchers, lawmen baffled by crime wave
By KATIE OYAN
Tribune Staff Writer

CONRAD -- This is the kind of déja vu Everett King could do without.  About 15 years ago, he discovered the grisly remains of one of his cattle that had died mysteriously.

In October, it happened again.

King said it looked as though a surgeon had sliced into his 7-year-old Charolais, the way its right eye and ear were cut off -- not to mention the way its reproductive organs had been cored.

What King finds most unusual, however, is that two months later the carcass lies right where he found it, untouched.

"Predators won't eat it," said King, who ranches outside Valier, south of Lake Frances. "It should have been cleaned up and gone a long time ago."

Ranchers reported four mutilations between June and August. Since then, there have been 11 more, and investigators are still searching for answers.

The same bizarre circumstances haunted area ranchers and baffled law enforcement 20 years ago, sparking rumors about UFOs, cults and government conspiracies.

The mutilations went away in the '90s but began again this summer.

The most recent victim -- a 12-year-old Hereford -- turned up earlier this month on a ranch northwest of Conrad.

"They skinned off the belly from her front legs to her back legs all the way around," Pondera County Sheriff's Deputy Dan Campbell said. "The complete bag was removed."

The last few mutilations occurred within three miles of each other in the Dry Forks area, about 10 or 15 miles west of Conrad.

In October, members of the New Miami Colony, 18 miles west of Conrad, discovered two mutilated cows at the same time, about 30 yards apart.

The scenes were remarkably similar to mutilations ranchers reported here more than a decade ago, Campbell said.

Most of the cows had the skin scraped off their faces. Often, the tongue, one eye and all or part of an ear had been removed. Part of the udder usually was cut off, as well as the genitals. And in most cases, the anus had been cored.

A majority of the cows were 4 or 5; one was missing its teeth.

In the late '70s, a high volume of alleged mutilations in southwestern states prompted a federally funded investigation. The resulting 300-page report concluded that animal predators were responsible.

Although some dismiss the Pondera County deaths as a hoax or chalk them up to natural causes and predators, Campbell and fellow investigator Sheriff's Deputy Dick Dailey say they aren't convinced.

Cuts on the cows are often circular or oval and -- as with Everett King's Charolais -- seem to be made with surgical precision.

The animals seem to bloat faster than normal, and their missing hide doesn't reflect the work of predators, Campbell said.

"I've never seen an animal eat just the face off a cow when there's lots of other stuff to go after," he said.

One mutilated cow looked like it had been burned. Another seemed to have bruises around its neck as though it had been strangled. One had a long cut with a perfectly ridged edge, as though the hide had been sliced with a tool similar to pinking shears.

Also strange is that in most cases, no tracks or footprints were detected around the animals' bodies, even in mud or snow.

A misconception is that the cows have been drained of blood. Natural coagulation only makes it look like the creatures' fluids have been drained, Dailey said.

Dailey, who lives in Dupuyer, spent several nights this fall camped out in dark fields, trying to catch the culprit in the act. He has reviewed all the facts and checked out dozens of Web sites looking for answers.

Still, nothing.

"I've read everything I can read on it, and I really don't know what in the heck it is," he said.

Ranchers aren't sure what to think, either.

In September, Jim VandenBos discovered the body of one of his $850 2-year-old Angus lying dead in his pasture.

The right side of its face was skinned, and the exposed jawbone was so smooth it looked like it had been polished, VandenBos said.

Its tongue was cut off along with its right ear, eye and reproductive organs. A tennis-ball-sized patch of skin on its shoulder was hard like plastic.

Again, coyotes -- even other cattle -- steered clear.

VandenBos has been ranching southwest of Valier for more than 30 years and remembers the last wave of mutilations well.

"It's kind of a spooky thing," he said. "I haven't worried about it too much because it's something I can't control - but I'd like to find an explanation."

Toward the end of October, a neighbor found the 750-pound steer that died in Glen and Ruby Bouma's dry creek bed, three miles west of Conrad.

"There was a little trail of grass pushed up like it was shoved up underneath it," Ruby Bouma said.

The hide was missing from the calf's stomach and its reproductive organs were gone, but there were no tracks, no bullet holes and no claw marks.

The calf, No. 55, was almost a year old and was worth about $600. It was one of the friendliest animals the Boumas owned.

A local vet said it died of dust pneumonia, but Glen and Ruby have their doubts.

"That's possible, because it's so dry," Ruby Bouma said. "But I think we would have known if it was sick. We took special notice because it was one of two calves that were like pets to us. It would come up and smell your hand or your pantleg."

The whole thing is peculiar, if you ask the Boumas. When a cow dies of natural causes, for instance, predators will usually chew into its flesh.

Glen and Ruby's calf was missing only its hide. And when they checked on Thanksgiving Day, predators still were keeping their distance.

Some folks in the area think the U.S. Air Force or aliens are behind the mutilations, but not Ruby.

"I'm sorry, but I personally think it's somebody local ... that's doing it for kicks," she said.

One difficulty local investigators have encountered in cracking the case is gathering evidence.

After two or three days, collecting evidence becomes a lost cause because the cattle are so badly decomposed.

And in the summer, carcasses rot faster and often go undiscovered for weeks.

"We have to fight time," Campbell said. "We're hoping that this time of year, ranchers are gathering and feeding every day so we'll get a better jump on them and come up with some more clues."

Pondera sheriff's deputies also are hoping a Nevada laboratory will answer some of their questions.

This fall, Campbell and Dailey chopped the head off a mutilated cow, packed it in dry ice and shipped it to the National Institute for Discovery Science in Las Vegas.

The privately funded institute pays scientists and retired police officers to investigate bizarre phenomena including mutilations and UFO sightings.

A spokesman from the institute said researchers are nearly finished with their study and will be sending a copy of the report to the Pondera County sheriff's office in a couple of weeks.

"If they could come up with something, that would really help us," Dailey said.

Until investigators reach a satisfactory conclusion, theories continue to spread through local coffee shops and bars.

Some say the mutilations are a government ploy to get Montanans' minds off global issues. Others finger satanic cults or spaceships.

Most say they don't believe in all that eerie X-Files stuff. But even some of the staunchest skeptics are beginning to wonder.

"I just can't believe little men are coming from outer space," said Conrad resident Jack Rowekamp, a retired bus driver and custodian. "But I guess you never know."

Tuesday December 18, 2001

Howling Amazon Monster Just an Indian Legend?
By Axel Bugge

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Imagine this: a hairy, six-foot monster, howling and stinking of death, crossing your path in the semi-darkness under the canopy of the mighty Amazon jungle.

Among Amazon Indians, legend has it that such a creature stalks the forests like a tropical Abominable Snowman -- never photographed or captured.

The animal species called ``Mapinguari,'' or giant defenders of the forests, by the Indians, is also known to the thousands of hunters that brave the forests every year. One such person, Joao Batista Azevedo, says he saw a Mapinguari 20 years ago after a 45-day canoe ride from the nearest village.

``I was working by the river when I heard a scream, a horrible scream,'' the now 70-year-old Azevedo told Reuters by telephone from his remote Amazon village. ``Suddenly something looking like a man came out of the forest, all covered in hair. He was walking on two legs and thank God he did not come toward us. I will always remember that day.''

Veteran Amazon ornithologist David Oren takes such stories very seriously. So much, in fact, that since 1988 he has been on a quest to find one of the creatures in the name of science and has led several expeditions into the depths of the world's largest rain forest to hunt for it.

``It's still being sited regularly. Several people think they came face to face with the Devil in the forest,'' he says of people like Azevedo who have helped guide him on his search. He believes there are dozens left.

Oren's theory is that the beast could be the world's last living giant ground sloth -- a distant relative of existing tree sloths -- that became extinct more than 10,000 years ago.

That belief has cost him dearly, he says, in the often conservative scientific community where reputation is everything. The National Geographic Society turned him down and he has funded his expeditions largely with his own money.

Paul Martin, a Meritus Professor of Geosciences at the University of Arizona and leading expert on the theory that humans were responsible for the extinction of such animals as the giant ground sloth, is one skeptic.

13,000 YEARS TOO LATE?

``I think he is 13,000 years too late. This sure does sound like the hunt for a Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster,'' Martin said. ``The part of me that is completely romantic is rooting for David Oren. But where the science part of me is concerned I don't give him a chance.''

Oren argues that a kind of giant ground sloth could still be alive in the Amazon because the forests offer huge, remote areas providing the necessary isolation to survive. Thick and impenetrable, the Amazon's continuous forest covers an area larger than all of Western Europe and is home to up to 30 percent of the world's animal and plant life.

Scientists say giant ground sloths were in abundance across the Americas, evidenced by fossil finds of such creatures in places as far apart as Patagonia in the south to the northwest of the United States.

The beast could have moved to the Amazon to escape hunting and encroachment of man on its natural habitat elsewhere.

Claudio Padua, a doctor of ecology who teaches at the University of Brasilia, is one of the few scientists prepared to believe Oren because the Amazon is still hiding thousands of undiscovered species.

``It would be the find of the century, it would have an extraordinary impact'' if found, said Padua.

He points out that 10 species of monkeys were discovered in the Amazon in the last decade. ``As a scientist I accept that everything is possible until there is proof to the contrary,'' he said.

FOREMOST RESEARCH CENTER

Generally a well-respected scientist, Oren is originally American but now carries a Brazilian passport. He first came to the Amazon in 1977 and for years worked for the Emilio Goeldi Museum in Belem -- one of Brazil's foremost Amazon research centers.

While he plugged away mapping the biological makeup of the Amazon, his fame may be best-connected with the Mapinguari.

Oren moved this year from Belem to take up a post with U.S. environmental group Nature Conservancy in Brasilia, thousands of miles from the Amazon, making it very difficult for him to hunt the Mapinguari. So has he lost his belief?

Not at all, he says. Indeed in June, just after leaving, he wrote his second scientific article in a decade on the beast, presenting all his evidence.

``When I wrote the 1993 paper, I had never interviewed anyone who had claimed to have killed one of these supposed animals,'' he wrote in the newsletter of the World Conservation Union's Edentate Specialist Group.

He has now talked to seven hunters who claim to have shot the animal and another 80 people who have seen it, he says.

``What they describe: a creature approximately two meters (six feet) tall when standing upright; a very strong, unpleasant smell; extremely heavy and powerful build; capable of breaking thick roots with its footsteps,'' the article says.

Most likely a defense mechanism, the smell is described by some witnesses as a mixture of feces and rotting flesh.

Oren says the beast has long coarse fur, four large teeth and that it moves on two or four legs. It also has an ''extremely loud, roaring vocalization ... similar to a human calling loudly, but with a growl at the end.''

In fact, on his expeditions, Oren says he himself yelled into the darkness and it howled back to him.

In his Brasilia villa, Oren keeps more evidence that includes a clay mold of a footprint, about an inch deep, with three large toes. The toes face backward because the creature walks on its knuckles, he says.

A series of pictures includes a photo of claw marks on a tree, eight of them about a foot long and an inch deep.

But there are big holes in the story. For one, the hunters who say they shot it did not keep any fragment of the creature, apparently throwing the parts away due to the strong stench.

Oren remains convinced though, arguing that the story needs to be widely published to ensure that if one is shot again its remains are inspected by scientists.

And despite the skepticism of many, there's no doubt scientists are fascinated by Oren's hunt.

``I'd be thrilled out of my mind if he (Oren) succeeded, it would be in my wildest dreams,'' said Martin. ``We (humans) resonate with these large animals, so everybody in town is going to feel the emotion of such a find.''
 

June 10, 2001

In La. Flood, Record Fish Caught

ANGOLA, La. (AP) - The fish measured nearly 7 feet long and would have been a state record in Louisiana, except for one problem - thanks to flooding, it was dragged out of an overflowing ditch instead of being hooked with a rod and reel.

The fish, a scaly, toothed creature called an alligator gar, was caught on the grounds of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the midst of flooding caused by remnants of Tropical Storm Allison.

Elsewhere, snakes and other reptiles swam in high water that flooded parts of Houston.

Inmates caught the 6-foot-9-inch, 164-pound gar at the maximum security prison farm for Warden Burl Cain on Friday.

According to the state Wildlife and Fisheries Department's Web page, the two biggest alligator gars ever caught in Louisiana weighed 179 and 134 pounds. Both were caught in the Red River in 1997.

But this one doesn't rate an entry in the record books, Cain said.

``I called the state to see if it's a record,'' he said. ``They said it had to be caught on a rod and reel. We caught him with a hay string, like you bale hay with. The inmates got a little old rope around his neck and dragged him out.''

The high water also helped Cain and an inmate catch a 5-foot alligator Friday to show Billy Bob Thornton and other members of a crew filming scenes for the movie "Monster's Ball" at Angola.

``The convict rassled him down. I had him on the head and neck, the convict had him on the tail. The convict let him go and he whomped me with his tail,'' Cain said.

In Texas, snakes and lizards floated in 3 feet of water that stood in the home of Al Guillen, so he and his family moved to their second floor in the Houston subdivision of Hunterwood Village.

``We were having a battle with them last night. I kept telling them 'This is my house, get out,''' Guillen said Sunday after being rescued by the National Guard.

Credit: Loren Coleman

LIVESTOCK KILLINGS PUZZLE ALL

By Byron Crawford
The Cincinnati Enquirer - Kentucky Edition
Page B1 - July 10, 2001

Leitchfield, KY - This is the kind of disgusting story that I hate to write and you hate to read. But maybe someone who can
help will call.

Grayson County Sheriff Joe Brad Hudson is puzzled over recent livestock killings and mutilations in southern Grayson County.

The latest occurred about seven weeks ago near Nolin Lake and is still under investigation. A 2-month old Appaloosa colt belonging to Mike and Rose Downs was found dead in a pasture. The sheriff found a 1-inch hold in the animal's chest, but he found no bullet exit wound or shell casing, and no blood around the carcass. The colt's sexual organs were missing.

About a year ago, Leonard Bruner, the Downses' neighbor, found one of his heifer calves dead in the edge of woods on his farm - her sexual organs, tongue and one ear removed and no blood on the animal or on the ground.

GOES BACK 25 YEARS

These are not the only unsolved cases of animal mutilations in the area.

Moran Mudd, who lives in Sadler, about 10 miles south of Leitchfield, lost a Hereford bull some years ago. When he found
the animal in a small stream bed on his farm, the bull's sexual organs were missing. His hooves had also been removed so cleanly that they looked as though they could have fallen off. But they were lined up - the two front hooves in front of the two back hooves - on a nearby flat rock. Several long hairs from the bull's tail were hanging from a nearby tree limb about 4 feet off
the ground. There was no sign of a bullet wound and there was no blood.

"Buzzards wouldn't even eat him," Mr. Mudd said. "It's weird."

Such mutilations have been occurring at irregular intervals around Grayson County for at least 25 years, without explanation.
No arrests are known to have ever been made.

Although no running total has been kept, retired Sheriff Lonnie Swift, who served from 1974 to 1977, remembers investigating two mutilation cases similar to the most recent.

"I don't remember a lot of details about it, but I believe one of the cases was a bull calf, and they cut off its left ear right
close to the skull, and cut out its sex organs, but there was no blood anywhere," Mr. Swift said. "That was near Caneyville. Seems like the other case involved more than one animal, but I can't remember. We never did find out anything about who did it."

Pete Pence, retired Leitchfield police chief and a former sheriff's deputy, remembers a case involving multiple mutilations
of cattle in the 1970s, but he cannot recall details.

CULT ACTIVITY CONSIDERED

Since the most recent mutilations, Grayson County Detective Roy Clodfelter has questioned a few farmers who lost animals several years ago, hoping to turn up clues that might help solve the cases.

Sheriff Hudson says his office has considered the possibility of cult activity, but officials have neither seen nor heard other
evidence suggesting the presence of a cult. He hopes someone will come forward with information.

"It's like a no-motive murder," he said. "Once you get so far, you're pretty much at a standstill."

Anyone with information may phone the Grayson County sheriff at
270-259-3024

Carloads hunted monster in Grant County

Not all the monsters are four-legged.

In July 1964 things were hopping in Grant County. The annual county fair was about to start its four-day run on the grounds of Grant County High School. Among the events were horseshoe pitching, baby show, Miss Grant County competition, Junior Woman's Club variety show and flower show sponsored by the Carlsbad Garden Club.

Then ''it'' was seen.

''It'' was described as big, dark, about 7 feet tall with shiny eyes. ''It'' was seen at a trash dump off U.S. 36. With each pasing night, word spread of the monster. Carloads of people came out to try to catch a glimpse of the beast. Some people reported seeing bear-like footprints.

One local farmer said the crowds were a nuisance, ''shouting and shooting.'' He asked people to stay away, saying there was no monster.

Making headlines daily in The Kentucky Post, the matter turned serious when two 17-year-old boys were accidentally struck by shotgun pellets fired by a group of teen-agers hunting for the monster. The injuries were not life-threatening.

Meanwhile, police were receiving reports of other monster sightings.

Finally, officers speculated the ''monster'' was probably just an eccentric man, well known to police, who tended to wander around after dark, but who was apparently harmless.

They also announced plans to begin citing the carloads of people, many from Kenton and Campbell counties, who continued to show up for the monster hunts. One night officers chased away 14 carloads, many of which had people ''running around half-cocked with shotguns.''

With that the ''monster'' stories disappeared and people returned to more routine pursuits.

Credit: Loren Coleman

September 22, 2000

Monkeys revolt, pelt cars

JARRATT, Va. (AP) - Three monkeys hurled bananas and crab apples at cars on Interstate 95, then fled into the woods, police said. Police believe the monkeys escaped while being taken to the state fair in Richmond or a circus in North Carolina.

State Trooper Mike Scott was flagged down Sunday by a driver who had pulled over near Jarratt. "When I walked up to the car, it looked like a banana had been smeared on the side," Scott said. The woman told him a monkey had thrown the fruit about a mile back.

"I started laughing," Scott said.

But he drove to the scene of the attack and found a van and a station wagon on the side of the highway. "A man said, 'I know
this sounds crazy, but a monkey threw an apple at our car,'" Scott said.
Just then, something hit the van. "Lo and behold there were three brown monkeys in an oak tree throwing crab apples,"
Scott said.

The primates jumped down, ran across the highway and escaped into more trees.

'(February 10, 1999
Monster' hijacks Florida boat

Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Reuters News Service

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla.  - Two Florida boaters had a brush with a
legitimate sea monster this week when their craft was dragged for hours by a powerful creature that turned out to be a giant manta ray, the Coast Guard said Wednesday.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Scott Barnes said the agency received a radio distress call at about 12:50 p.m. EST on Tuesday from a 16-foot boat that reported it was being dragged by its anchor line by an unknown animal.

The Coast Guard sent a rescue boat to investigate and it found the motorboat being dragged in circles by something beneath the Atlantic Ocean's surface.

The crew transferred the anchor line to the Coast Guard vessel, freeing the men in the motorboat, who had tried and failed to use their 90-horsepower engine to go in reverse and stop themselves from being dragged out to sea.

After the Coast Guard's 41-foot boat pulled on the anchor line for several minutes, a giant manta ray measuring 18 feet in width and weighing at least 300 pounds came to the surface.

The Coast Guard continued to try to pull the rope free, but the giant wing-shaped creature eventually freed itself and swam away, Barnes said.

He said the manta ray could have pulled the boat to the bottom if the water had been deep enough for it to do so. While manta rays have been known to weigh up to 3,000 pounds , the shark-related fish are usually far smaller.

"If there were just a ledge and he decided to head down, that boat could have been gone," Barnes said. "Overall, the manta ray pulled the 16-foot vessel for almost two hours and towed it approximately 1-1/2 miles miles offshore."

Credit: Dave Walsh

11-inch piranha fished out of Texas lake

DALLAS, ( Reuters) - A Texas teenager who went out fishing came back with an 11-inch piranha, a local newspaper reported on Friday.

Quinton Crocker reeled in the sharp-toothed carnivore, which is native to South American rivers but not anywhere in North America, in Stillhouse Hollow Lake, a large central Texas reservoir near the town of Killeen.

"I've lived here all my life and never seen one of these," the 15-year-old told the Killeen Daily Herald. "It was different catching one. I didn't really know what to expect."

Officials said the fish was most likely released into the wild after getting too big for some owner's aquarium.

They said there could be other piranhas from the same source and they could even spawn, but the next cold winter would kill them off.

"Are these dangerous for bathers and swimmers? No," Norman Williams, a zoologist and chairman of the Department of Sciences at Central Texas College, told the newspaper.

"The stories of piranha attacks are grossly exaggerated by Hollywood," said Williams, who identified Crocker's catch.

SCORPION BITES WOMAN AFTER FLIGHT

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? A New York woman braved a scorpion attack while passing through customs at New York's JFK International Airport Wednesday night.

Rafaela Sanchez said the scorpion must have crept into her coat during her flight back from Mexico. She was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, which treated its first scorpion bite case.

Sanchez was listed in stable condition in the emergency department Thursday. She suffered classic poisonous bite symptoms, including vision and swallowing problems, hospital officials said.

Jacobi spokeswoman Susan Mueller said the 26?year?old woman would be kept "at least overnight. She's finally able to sleep, after not being able to last night."

She said New York's poison control center had never previously had a scorpion bite report.

AP
26-OCT-98

Hunter Finds His Deer
Includes Two Heads

(Great Falls, Montana)-- A Montana deer hunter has one bizarre tale to tell.

Robert Kercher killed a buck yesterday. And, tangled in its antlers, he found the head and antlers of a second buck.

The hunters and a wildlife biologist figure the beheaded buck was the loser in a head-butting battle. They think the winning deer dragged the loser around until its body rotted and fell off.

It's also possible that coyotes moved in on the entangled deer as they fought, and killed one. The hunters found bite marks on the deer that Kercher shot.

Whatever the explanation, Kercher's hunting partner says they'll be telling this story forever.

Sydney Morning Herald  December 15, 1998
New crab species claw their way into record books

By JAMES WOODFORD

When times are good in the outback millions of land crabs emerge from their deep desert burrows for a few weeks of breeding before disappearing again for up to four years until the next rains.

Freshwater crabs are one of the most mysterious and little known of bush creatures. Since the 1970s scientists have thought there were only two species of freshwater crab in Australia, and that these - which had lost the ability to survive in salt water - had evolved when the country was part of the super-continent Gondwana.

But crustacea expert at the Australian Museum, Mr Shane Ahyong, has discovered new species of freshwater crab in Sydney pet shops which are making their way into the aquarium trade years before they are being described by science.

He has traced back one, apparently a new species, to a particular stream in Cape York. It does not yet have a common name but is similar in appearance to another recently described freshwater species known as the wine glass, deaths head or jolly roger crab because of the black skull and crossbones-like mark on the top of its carapace (shell).

It seems Australia has at least seven species of freshwater crabs, ranging from the pygmy crab whose carapace is less than 2.5 centimetres wide to possible freshwater wine glass crabs reportedly with shells 10 centimetres across. Aquarists are attracted to the crabs because they are easy to breed and keep, Mr Ahyong said.

The freshwater crabs have made a number of adaptations to amphibious life including giving birth to fully formed miniatures of themselves and being able to move their internal organs from side to side in order to force oxygen through their gills. "They scavenge, they chomp through leaf litter, they're food for other creatures and they're a general cleaner-upper-mopper," Mr Ahyong said. "If anyone finds one contact me."

Credit: Craig Heinselman

BEIJING (Dec. 17) XINHUA - A rare giant owl attacked and killed more than 3,000 chickens on a farm in east China's Zhejiang Province but the protected species wasn't given the same treatment after being captured.

Instead the farmer, Shan Baiju, has actually taken the bird under the wing of his own family and feeds it daily with snacks of beef and pork.

His farm had been the target of the huge owl, which has a wing span of 1.5 meters, and once before and then lost 946 chickens.

Local police were convinced it was the work of human criminals until Shan showed them the creature which had been caught by another farmer in his village.

Shan, who has a reputation as a hard worker and who earlier this year was chosen as one of the region's "Ten Best Science Trail Blazers", told police he would have killed the bird because it has cost him more than 10,000 yuan but he knew it was protected and felt it his duty to let it live.

The owl's havoc-wreaking was finally brought to an end when fellow farmer Wan Bailin tackled the 2.5-kg bird of prey with his bare hands.

But despite Shan's kindness the owl is bad tempered even though he often gives it a meal of his remaining chickens.

This surly attitude, though, has not changed the 28-year-old farmer's mind and he continues to look after the owl.

Yahoo State News//Florida HeadlineDecember 24, 1998

Hog Going Wild In Palm Coast - (PALM COAST) -- It's a porker of a problem for residents of a Palm Coast neighborhood. For about a week now, a wild boar with very large tusks has cut a swath of destruction through well-manicured front lawns. It's apparently rooting for food. To make matters worse, this boar has been caught before... so it's wise to
the ways of animal trappers. One local businessman calls it a "phantom pig."

Credit: Loren Coleman

Gannet News Service; May 3, 1997

TODAY'S MAIN COURSE: FROG LEGS

Mutant Frogs on the Increase

Some unusual features have been observed in frogs all across the nation. They have been found with extra legs, missing limbs and misplaced eyes. These discoveries have been on the increase in several states and have residents and biologists concerned.

While there is no definite hypothesis to these abnormities, one theory is that increased radiation from the sun is the probable cause. This theory coincides with the destruction of the ozone layer. Furthermore, it may be that the ultraviolet radiation may be interacting with pesticides and other chemicals to make a toxic situation for frogs.

The Environmental protection Agency (EPA) plans to install special equipment to monitor radiation levels at a dozen national parks.
Spectroradiometers will be setup in a wide range of environments from the Florida Everglades to Glacier Park in Montana. The project will also monitor radiation on other types of floral and animals.

Experts on frogs and other amphibians say that their sensitive porous skin can be used as an early warning system for humans.

"If something in the environment - like toxins and radiation - is whacking the frogs, it can whack us too," said Sam Droege of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Earthweek
by Steve Newman
Week Ending Friday, May 9, 1997

Half Fish and Half Horse?

South African villagers in a remote rural backwater are living in fear of a man?eating river creature said to have characteristics of both a fish and a horse.

Ezra Sigwella, agriculture minister in the Eastern Cape region, told an astonished legislature that the beast had gobbled up seven victims in the Umzimhlava River to the north of the former Transkei black homeland.

He promised to dispatch officials to hunt down the "monster." His remarks drew a few titters from the lawmakers, amid calls of "mamlambo" ? a reference to a beast from Xhosa tribal mythology which is said to live in rivers and, if caught, provide great wealth.

Credit: Loren Coleman

Associated Press 5/10/97

A SUBURBAN BEAR
Black Bear Captured Outside of NYC

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) ?? A black bear with a taste for Italian food wandered through the suburbs of New York City for nearly a week before being captured at a country club golf course on Friday.

The young bear had been spotted five times since Sunday. On Tuesday it was seen taking food out of a trash bin outside the
Venetian Delight on Central Avenue in Yonkers, just five miles from the Big Apple State Department of Environmental Conservation biologists Richard Henry and David Cree were holding a news conference on the bear Friday when word arrived that it had been spotted again, this time in White Plains. They took off in hot pursuit.

"It must have seemed like a Keystone comedy to some people," Henry said about the bear chase and media frenzy. "An entourage of reporters followed us.''

They caught up with the bear at the Ridgeway Country Club in White Plains, where they knocked it out with a tranquilizing dart.

The bear, estimated to be 1 to 2 1/2 years old, was to be taken upstate to a park in the Catskills on Saturday and released.

New York state is home to an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 bears, and officials say they may wander nearly 100 miles in search of a mate or new territory.

But Henry said this was the first time in 25 years that he'd heard of a bear being caught in Westchester County, a heavily populated suburban area just north of New York City.

Credit: Kenny Young

Associated Press, 06/26/97 13:23

CENTRAL MAINE RESIDENTS WARNED AS BIG BIRD RUNS LOOSE

BENTON, Maine (AP) ? It weighs 200 pounds, is more than 5 feet tall, has sharp claws, a long neck and can run 30 mph. And a state veterinarian says the big bird that remained at large Thursday should be considered dangerous.

``We have a stray ostrich ? or an emu ? we're trying to find. It's still out there, and we're not having any luck,'' said Paula Mitchell of the Waterville Area Humane Society. ``The poor thing is still running around.''

Mitchell said the big, flightless bird was last sighted  Thursday in Winslow in central Maine.

Rodney Blaisdell of Benton received a gash in the hand  when he tried to catch it barehanded. Fourteen stitches were required to close the wound after his encounter Tuesday.

``I grabbed that bird around the neck and he just started putting the feet to me,'' said Blaisdell, adding that he bled so much from the wound that he almost passed out.

Several people have reported seeing the mystery bird, and some have gotten close to it during the past few days, officials said.

On Monday, two boys who roped the bird found out it  wasn't going to be captured without a fight.

``He didn't enjoy the rope, but when he hit the electric fence he went berserk,'' said Christine Bessey, dog catcher for the Benton?Albion area.

``I'm tired of chasing that thing. We'll find the owner, and when we do, the owner can chase him,'' said Bessey.

According to Blaisdell, the bird apparently got loose Sunday as it was being transported in the back of the pickup truck of a Brooks man who had bought the bird from someone in Clinton.

Chip Ridky, a state veterinarian, said that the last time an emu got loose he had to fire four or five tranquilizer darts at it, and finally had to pounce on it to bring it down.

Mitchell said she knows of some central Maine residents who own ostriches and emus, but she believes the loose bird is an emu.

TOADS RAIN ON TOWN
 

CULIACAN, Mexico - (AP)Call it a challenge to windshield wipers: It rained toads in the town of Villa Angel Flores.

Motorists reported the shower of toads around 11 p.m. Saturday in Mexico's Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa.

A mini tornado had whirled up a cluster of toads from a nearby pond and dumped them on the town, the newspaper El Debate reported Tuesday.

Cincinnati Enquirer 6/11/95
Bird deaths probed Chicago Tribune

  MEXICO CITY-The mysterious deaths of more than 40,000 migratory birds at a Mexican reservoir will be the first ecological disaster investigated by the environmental body set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The North American Commission for Envirommental Cooperation will explore why thousands of Amencan coots, mallards, ruddy ducks and other waterfowl from the United States and Canada have died since December at Silva Reservoir in the central state of Guanajuato.

ROAMING KANGAROO SEEN

Ho-Ho-KUS  - Some people report abominable snowman or Bigfoot sightings, but in Ho-Ho-Kus its kangaroos.

Residents in this affluent Bergen County community have called police at least four times in the past year to report seeing a kangaroo hopping about.

The latest report came from Annie Brennan, 18, who said the animal was on the driveway of her home on brook View Court Saturday night when she looked out the window.

When she told her 25-year-old sister, Peggy, the next morning, she expected to be ridiculed. Instead, Peggy said: “Annie, I saw one last year with grandma.”

Ploce said they also had another sighting on Brook View Court by a man and a sighting on Bogert Lane.

From the Houston (Texas) Chronicle; Tuesday, August 23, 1988

ANACONDA CRUSHES, SWALLOWS 3-YEAR-OLD IN AMAZON JUNGLE

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - A 3 year old boy playing along the bank of a river in the western Amazon jungle was crushed and swallowed whole by a 45-foot anaconda, newspapers reported Monday.  They said the boy’s father tried in vain to save him from the jaws of the anaconda, a long, heavy South American snake of the boa family.

“The boy, Daniel Menezes, had accompanied his father, Joao, to the river to catch fish. With fish in hand, the father started walking to his small wooden shack a few feet away when he heard screams.  He looked back, and he saw his son’s neck in the jaws of the snake,” said Jorcene Martinez, a reported for O Estadao newspaper.
Martinez spoke to the Associated Press by phone from the jungle city of Porto Velho, 2,045 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.  He quoted the father as saying the incident occurred Aug. 8 along the Jaru River.

“It took the family two weeks to travel the more than 185 miles to Porto Velho, where they told us what had happened,” Martinez said.  He said the father rushed to his home, grabbed an old rifle and “ran back to the river in a desperate attempt to save his son.  But when he got to the river he saw the anaconda had already crushed his son’s bones and had started swallowing the body.  There was nothing left to do.”

Menezes is an impoverished peasant who plants “manic root and hunts and fishes to feed his family,” Martinez said.  The Jaru winds through thick jungle and is infested with man-eating piranha, alligators, and snakes, Martinez said.

November 7, 1987

St. Paul, Pioneer

An 11-foot stugeon weighing nearly a half-ton has been found dead in Lake Washington, where tales have long persisted of a hugh, "dock-eating monster."

The fish was found in Bellevue, Wash.,area lake on Thurday, said Officer Roger Heath of King County's Marine Patrol. It weighed 900 pounds and was born somewhere around the turn of the century, said Fisheries Department spokesman Tony Floor.

Deseret News_ July 18, 1966.
But Would You Believe Batman?

A huge bird hovering over the east bench area sent residents scurrying for binoculars, dark glasses and hats Monday.
Most residents agreed that it could be an eagle, but it may have been Batman.

C.L. Fairbanks, 817 Logan, saw the bird and it was "about as big as a Piper Club airplane." It didn't have a motor and had
retractable landing gear.

It disappeared eastward after a few moments of circling the area.

Credit: John Moore

WHAT IS IT? "MONSTER CHURNS UP THE OHIO

Anyone missing an 'indescribable monster that swims?

Cincinnati, Clermont County and New Richmond police received telephone calls from men who said they saw "something come out of the river."

Officers at Station X received calls from two different men.  The first came from a man who said he saw the object about four miles from New Richmond.  He said he could not describe the object.

THE SECOND CALLER with a different voice said he was a truck driver en route to Indianapolis.  He said he was calling from a service station on Kellogg Avenue near the river bridge [Little Miami] after passing through Mt. Washington toward Cincinnati.

"It came up out of the water", the truck driver said. "I can't describe it and I have never seen anything like it before.  All I
want to do is get out of here and get on to Indianapolis."

A dispatcher at Station X said, "We didn't do anything after the first call. After the second one, we asked Hamilton County police if they had heard about it.  We both sent cars out after 4 a.m.. and chased ghosts for a couple of hours, but we didn't find anything. "

It really was a riot here.  We kept waiting for someone to say, take me to your leader."

TO ADD TO the mystery, all the street lights along Kellogg Avenue from Lunken Airport to Coney Island went out about the same time.  Police say the lights are on two different circuits, and that so far they have been unable to find why the lights went
out.

Most dispatchers who received calls about the 'monster" agree the callers sounded "shaken" but sober.  They offer a number of
theories of what the men might of seen.

Frank B. Heisler, A Clermont County dispatcher, believes the men might of seen a tree bobbing up and down in the water.

CINCINNATI POLICE  for a time thought maybe someone had an auto accident, hit a pole, and rolled over in the mud. This would explain why the lights went out along Kellogg Ave. and what was seen coming up out of the water. [A very wet and muddy driver] but they were unable to find any broken poles.

Willaim Sprague, a lockman, at dam 37 ay Fernbank, also thinks the men might of seen a tree drifting down stream.

MR. SPRAGUE said, "I've been on duty since midnight.  I look out over the river a good deal of the time and I never saw a thing."

"The winds was strong all night and it whipped up waves six to eight feet high.  That could fool a man.  The wind tore a lot of
driftwood loose too.  I've been out on the river at night and the trees floating by in a dim light look spooky.

Maybe the 'monster' was a tree.

Cincinnati Post and Times Star
January 30, 1959

DRIVER SWEARS IT HAPPENED: RIVER MONSTER TAKES A STROLL ON BRIDGE

Eye-witnesses still insist that an "indescrible" monster is bobbing around playfully in the Greater Cincinnati rivers and streams.  A fellow who says he's a scientist working on things out of this world says he was driving across the Licking River Friday morning when "something leaped on the bridge."

It was large, not a dog or a cat.  It leaped in front of my car and on two legs was taller than the auto.  When I looked back in my mirror, it was moving along the bridge rail.  "it was three or four times the size of a man and much bulkier.  I have an eye and mind for dimensions and I
know it was huge.

A YOUNG LADY claims she spotted the thing in a creek near the Fort Thomas pumping station.  It was like an octopus.  It came up and then moved down.

An 11-year old phoned the Post and Times Star to ask if the green men really are coming out of the river in groups of 12 as his teacher said they were!!

A woman pulled to the curb Saturday and yelled to a reporter: "We saw that thing this morning. Now you gonna put my name in the
paper and call me a crack pot?"

REPORTED SIGHTINGS of the "monster" at various points flowed in Friday to police of Cincinnati, New Richmond, Clermont and Hamilton Counties.  Hamilton County officers spent two hours chasing ghosts along the Ohio and Little Miami Rivers. Street lights went out in parts of eastern Cincinnati about the same time adding to the eeriness.  But the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Co. says it was a poewer failure caused by high winds.

Police said Saturday the phone calls have ended.  The monster has left town said Station X.  The Hamilton County dispatcher figures
the people have quit drinking hair tonic.  The man who'd like to believe in the monster's reality is Pepper Wilson, general manager of the Cincinnati Royals, who've had a less then sensational  basketball season.  "If that thing is over eight feet tall', we're interested."

Credit: Donnie Blessing