Professor Hepcat's Primer on Supernatural Beings!

[CreepysFan]

But there's no evil presented in any of the pictures I posted.

 

Maybe not, but the pics definitely raised ..... the devil. 

[Hepcat]

Of course!





The above title is part of any well-read man's library.

[Hepcat]

I just had some highlights put in for a formal reception at the dean's residence:

[Hepcat]

A complicating factor in any discussions of the supernatural is that natural phenomena that we don't fully understand and thus can't easily explain are frequently lumped in with supernatural phenomena. There have been innumerable cases of this happening over the ages. For example, the daily appearance of the sun in the east and its setting in the west was once seen as the celestial intervention of Apollo in his fiery chariot. We have now learned enough to understand that there is a more mundane natural explanation for the sun's seeming journey across the sky.

But we are still prone to giving perfectly natural occurrences a supernatural explanation. In our ignorance we dismiss perfectly natural phenomena as superstitions. For example, Lake Champlain and Okanagan Lake have hosted populations of fresh water aquatic reptiles for eons.

Lake Champlain

Max. length 201 km (125 mi)
Max. width 23 km (14 mi)
Surface area 1,269 sq km (490 sq mi)
Average depth 19.5 m (64 ft)
Max. depth 122 m (400 ft)

The ones in Lake Champlain are collectively known as Champ.

Lake Okanagan

Max. length  135 kilometres (84 mi)
Max. width 5 kilometres (3.1 mi)
Surface area 351 square kilometres (136 sq mi)
Average depth 76 m (249 ft)
Max. depth 232 m (761 ft)

Those in Lake Okanagan are called Ogopogo.





The jersey of the Kelowna Rockets, of the major junior Western Hockey League, has for decades featured the prehistoric monster dwelling in Lake Okanagan named Ogopogo:



Ogopogo has been devouring careless fishermen and swimmers in the lake for thousands of years.

But Ogopogo is your straight forward garden variety marine reptile. There's nothing supernatural about Ogopogo at all.

[Hepcat]

Proper vampire demeanour:



Accept NO substitutes!

[Hepcat]

Careful scholarly research of earth's geological history is very often the key to understanding present day phenomenon.

For example North America has not always had its present shape/form. A large inland sea known as the Western Interior Seaway existed from about 100 million years to 65 million years ago during the mid to late Cretaceous period within what we now call North America. This Western Interior Seaway is therefore also known as the Cretaceous Seaway and the North American Inland Sea. The Western Interior Seaway acted to split the continent of North America into the Laramidia landmass to the west and the Appalachia landmass to the east:





The Western Interior Seaway did of course teem with various fish and reptiles including vicious flesh-eating dinosaurs such as the tylosaurs pictured below:





By the end of the last Ice Age the Western Interior Seaway had shrunk down to Lake Agassiz which covered an area centering on Manitoba approximately 13,000 to 8200 years ago:





The retreat of the Wisconsin ice sheet enabled Lake Agassiz to drain into Hudson Bay leaving remnants such as Lake Winnipeg, Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Manitoba and Lake of the Woods:



A rather sizable vestige population of tylosaurs though continues to survive in Lake Winnipeg and perhaps Cedar Lake as well:





Sightings of Manipogo (as these tylosaurs are now known) are common. Manipogo is in fact much beloved by the people of Manitoba. Local residents are therefore understandably highly protective of their own local "sea monster" despite the occasional hysterical tourist demanding that something be done about the loss of her husband, child, dog, etc. Manipogo too needs to eat of course.

[Hepcat]

Contrary to appearances, these two handsome fellows are not direct linear descendants of dinosaurs:

American Alligator



Nile Crocodile



Crocodilians, birds and dinosaurs all evolved from a common ancestor of theirs, archosaurs such as Scythosuchus and Tsylmosuchus, from the early Triassic period which was about 250 million years ago:



Relatively modern crocodilians took shape about 200 million years ago, and unlike their dinosaur cousins they're still around to this very day!

[Hepcat]

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[Sir Masksalot]

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[Hepcat]

Here's a thought provoking article:

Are Pterodactyl Sightings Real?



They were the largest creatures to ever attain flight. With wingspans reaching nearly 40 feet, pterosaurs ruled the prehistoric skies for over 100 million years, until they died out with the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.

Or did they?

There have been many modern-day sightings of creatures that by eyewitness description sound like pterosaurs, or pterodactyl sightings. There are also intriguing rock carvings and even photographs that suggest that this species of amazing flying monsters could have survived extinction, could have soared through the skies of the southwestern United States until very recently and might still exist in small numbers in remote parts of the world.

Modern Pterodactyl Sightings
Although there seems to be no hard evidence that pterosaurs did not die out millions of years ago - no pterosaurs have ever been captured and no bodies have ever been found - sightings have persisted. Stories of flying reptiles have been recorded for many hundreds of years. Some think that tales of the "mythical" dragons in the lore of many cultures around the would be attributed to the sighting of pterosaurs. Here are some more modern accounts:

May 1961, New York State: A businessman flying his private plane over the Hudson River Valley claimed that he was "buzzed" by a large flying creature that he said looked like a pterodactyl.

The early 1960s, California: A couple driving through Trinity National Forest reported seeing the silhouette of a giant "bird" that they estimated to have a wingspan of 14 feet. They later described it as resembling a pterodactyl.

January 1976, Harlingen, Texas: Teens Jackie Davis and Tracey Lawson reported seeing a "bird" on the ground that stood five feet tall, was dark in color with a bald head and a face like a gorilla's with a sharp, six-inch-long beak. A subsequent investigation by their parents uncovered tracks that had three toes and were eight inches across.

February 1976, San Antonio, Texas: Three elementary school teachers saw what they described as a pterodactyl swooping low over their cars as they drove. They said its wingspan was between 15 and 20 feet. One of the teachers commented that it glided through the air on huge, bony wings like a bat.

September 1982, Los Fresnos, Texas: An ambulance driver named James Thompson was stopped while driving on Highway 100 by his sighting of a "large birdlike object" flying low over the area. He described it as black or grayish with a rough texture, but no feathers. It had a five- to six-foot wingspan, a hump on the back of its head, and almost no neck at all. After consulting some books to identify the creature, he decided it most looked like a pterosaur.

Africa's Kongamoto
While other reports of pterosaur-like creatures have come out of Arizona, Mexico and Crete, it is out of central Africa that some of the most interesting anecdotes have come. While traveling through Zambia in 1923, Frank H. Melland collected reports from natives of an aggressive flying reptile they called kongamoto, which means "overwhelmer of boats." The natives, who were occasionally tormented by these creatures, described them as being featherless with smooth skin, having a beak full of teeth and a wingspan of between four and seven feet. When shown illustrations of pterosaurs, Melland reported, the natives identified them as most resembling kongamoto.

In 1925, a native man was allegedly attacked by a creature that he identified as a pterosaur. This occurred near a swamp in Rhodesia where the man suffered a large wound in his chest that he said was caused by the monster's long beak.

In the late 1980s, noted cryptozoologist Roy Mackal led an expedition into Namibia from which he had heard reports of a prehistoric-looking creature with a wingspan of up to 30 feet.

Photo Evidence
If pterosaurs really died out with the dinosaurs and their fossil remains were not first discovered until 1784, then a depiction of one could not possibly exist in an ancient rock carving. Yet a pictograph found high on a cliff face near Thompson, Utah seems to show just that.

While many experts believe the drawing is a bird, the beak, head prominence, wings, and legs also look very much like those of a pterosaur.

Another fascinating tale of a pterosaur literally coming out of stone dates back to 1856 in France. Workmen were digging through Jurassic-era limestone for a railway tunnel between the St.-Dizier and Nancy lines. When a large boulder of limestone was split open, the workers were astonished to see a large winged creature come tumbling out. They said it fluttered its wings, let out a croaking noise and then dropped dead at their feet. The creature had thick black, leathery skin, a beak full of sharp teeth, long talons for feet, and membrane-like wings that spanned 10 feet, 7 inches, by their measure.

The body of the creature was taken to the nearby town of Gray, according to the story, where it was identified as a pterodactyl by a student of paleontology. As reported in the Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856, the rock in which the creature had apparently been entombed for millions of years, contained a precise mold of its body.

The April 25, 1890, edition of the Tombstone Epitaph ran a story of two Arizona ranchers who claimed to have chased on horseback a flying monster "resembling a huge alligator with an extremely elongated tail and an immense pair of wings." True to the spirit of the West, they shot the creature. Taking measurements, they reported that the monster was 92 feet long with a 160-foot wingspan and a mouth full of sharp teeth.

The story is not taken seriously by many researchers today, but it corresponds loosely with a story about a Thunderbird that was allegedly shot in the same area in 1886 and dragged into town to be photographed. Several paranormal researchers claim to recall seeing that photo, but don't know where, and the photo has not been seen since.

Ropen (present day pterodactyls) do continue to reign supreme in the skies over certain Indonesian islands and even in parts of the United States as can be seen in these videos:

Ropen of New Guinea

Living Pterodactyls in Arkansas and Elsewhere

And the population of their colony in North Carolina is certainly increasing:

Flying Dinosaurs - Charlotte Stories

[Hepcat]

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