The evidence · Almanac of Cryptids

The Surgeon's Photo Proven hoax

1934 · photo · Loch Ness Monster

Dated April 19, 1934, this grainy photo shows a slender neck and small head rising from Loch Ness. It was credited to Colonel Robert Wilson, a respected London doctor, which gave it great credibility. For about 60 years it was the defining image of Nessie.

In 1994 Christian Spurling confessed, shortly before his death at age 90, that he built the 'monster' from a toy submarine with a model head. He said his stepfather, big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell, planned it as revenge after being mocked over fake hippo-foot tracks. Wilson was used as the respectable front, and the published version was cropped to hide the model's small size.

What supporters say

A few researchers, such as zoologist Karl Shuker, have discussed whether the confession itself might be unreliable, but most Nessie researchers accept it as a hoax.

What critics say

It is a confessed hoax made with a toy submarine and a sculpted head.

Sources

Shipton Yeti Footprint Photo Disputed

1951 · photo · Yeti

During the 1951 British Everest reconnaissance, mountaineer Eric Shipton photographed a large, sharp footprint on the Menlung Glacier at roughly 6,000 meters. The print was about 13 inches long and seemed to show a large thumb-like toe. The Sherpas with the team said the tracks were made by a yeti.

The photo became one of the most famous images in cryptozoology. It helped turn the 'Abominable Snowman' into a worldwide sensation in the 1950s. A copy is held on Wikimedia Commons.

What supporters say

Supporters say the print is too crisp and too large to be a melted human or bear track, and the Sherpa identification adds weight.

What critics say

Some say melting snow distorted ordinary tracks. Explorer Daniel Taylor argues young Asiatic black bears that climb trees have a grasping digit and that a hind paw stepping into a front paw print can create a 'thumbed' track. A British Museum curator once suggested langur monkeys.

Sources

1958 Bluff Creek Tracks Proven hoax

1958 · document · Bigfoot

In August 1958 a worker at Ray Wallace's road-building site in Humboldt County, California, reported giant human-like footprints. The Humboldt Times story used the name 'Bigfoot,' which stuck.

After Wallace died in 2002, his son Michael showed large carved wooden feet. The family said Wallace's brother and nephew used them to make tracks as a joke, and that Wallace faked other evidence too.

What supporters say

Ed Schillinger, described as the only surviving witness from the job site, strongly disputes the family's story. Jeff Meldrum has questioned Wallace's credibility on other Bigfoot claims.

What critics say

Skeptics see the family's revelation as solving how the modern Bigfoot story began.

Sources

Pangboche Hand Explained

1959 · body · Yeti

The Pangboche Hand was a mummified hand kept at a Buddhist monastery in Pangboche, Nepal, and said to be a yeti's. Oilman Tom Slick heard of it on his 1957 treks and backed expeditions to study it.

In 1959 expedition member Peter Byrne said he took finger pieces after the monks declined an examination, swapped in human bones and rewrapped the hand. Actor James Stewart is said to have smuggled the pieces out of India in his wife's luggage. The whole hand was stolen from the monastery in 1991. In 2011 scientists in Edinburgh tested a finger bone and found it was human. Weta Workshop made a replica that the monks received that May.

What supporters say

Tom Slick's expeditions treated the hand as a serious lead, and it drew decades of interest as possible yeti remains.

What critics say

The 2011 DNA test showed a very strong match to human DNA.

Sources

Pangboche Hand - Wikipedia

Dinsdale Film Disputed

1960 · film · Loch Ness Monster

On April 23, 1960, aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale filmed a dark hump crossing Loch Ness and leaving a wake. He shot it on day six of a six-day watch. The film made him one of the best-known Nessie hunters.

In 1966 the Royal Air Force's Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (JARIC) studied the film and called the object 'probably animate.' Dinsdale returned to the loch many times but never filmed anything like it again. He died in 1987.

What supporters say

The JARIC analysis is the main support. A 1993 computer enhancement for Discovery was said to show a body shape under the water.

What critics say

Later analysts argue it shows a boat, pointing to a pale blob where a helmsman would sit and the way the object fades into reflections rather than diving. They say the 1993 'body' was likely a shore reflection.

Sources

Khumjung Yeti Scalp Explained

1960 · body · Yeti

During Edmund Hillary's 1960-61 Himalayan expedition, the team borrowed a cone-shaped 'yeti scalp' from the monastery at Khumjung, Nepal, for testing.

Researcher Marca Burns examined it and found it resembled the hide of a serow, a goat-like Himalayan animal.

What supporters say

For the monastery it remains a revered object, and supporters note one test of one item cannot settle the wider question.

What critics say

The lab work pointed to serow hide shaped into a cap.

Sources

Mothman Newspaper Accounts Unexplained

1966 · document · Mothman

On November 15, 1966, two young couples, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette, reported a tall winged creature with glowing red eyes near the old TNT area outside Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The next day the Point Pleasant Register ran 'Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something.'

Mary Hyre, writing from Point Pleasant for The Athens Messenger, also covered it on November 16, 1966, and wrote about ten columns on the creature by year's end. She later covered the Silver Bridge collapse of December 15, 1967. John Keel dedicated The Mothman Prophecies (1975) to her memory.

What supporters say

The reports are on the record, came from named witnesses and were covered right away by local reporters.

What critics say

Wildlife biologist Robert L. Smith suggested a sandhill crane. Joe Nickell suggested a barred owl, with 'glowing' eyes caused by eyeshine in headlights.

Sources

Patterson-Gimlin Film Disputed

1967 · film · Bigfoot

On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed a large, dark, hairy figure walking along a creek near Bluff Creek, a Klamath River tributary in northern California. The 16mm clip runs about 59.5 seconds at 16 frames per second, or 954 frames.

It is still the most debated piece of Bigfoot evidence. In 1999 Bob Heironimus said he wore the suit, and in 2002 costume maker Philip Morris said he sold Patterson a gorilla suit. Neither produced the suit. The original film's whereabouts are unknown, though many copies exist.

What supporters say

Anthropologists Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum argued the walk and body look non-human and hard to fake in 1967. Bill Munns and Meldrum argued in 2013 that visible skin folds and body fat match real anatomy rather than a costume.

What critics say

Primatologist John Napier and anthropologist David Daegling argued a person could copy the gait and questioned features that do not fit a real ape. Heironimus and Morris claim it was a man in a suit.

Sources

Minnesota Iceman Proven hoax

1968 · body · Bigfoot

In the late 1960s, showman Frank Hansen toured fairs with a hairy, man-like body frozen in a block of ice. He billed it as a possible 'missing link' and claimed it came from Siberia and belonged to an unnamed California millionaire.

Ivan T. Sanderson wrote about it in Argosy magazine in April 1969, which drew in the Smithsonian. Primatologist John Napier found that Hansen had ordered the figure from a West Coast company in 1967. The latex model sold on eBay in 2013 to Steve Busti and is on display at the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas.

What supporters say

Some early viewers, including Sanderson, thought there might have been a real body that was later swapped for a model.

What critics say

Napier concluded the 'original' and the 'replacement' were the same latex model, repositioned between shows.

Sources

Minnesota Iceman - Wikipedia

Sierra Sounds Unexplained

1972 · audio · Bigfoot

Starting in 1971, Ron Morehead and Al Berry camped at a remote site in California's Sierra Nevada. In 1972 they recorded howls, grunts, knocks and fast, chattering vocal sounds at night. Morehead was a believer; Berry began as a doubter hoping to debunk the idea.

The fast chatter is nicknamed 'samurai chatter' because some listeners say it sounds like dialogue in samurai films. Berry died in 2012. Morehead has continued to present the tapes.

What supporters say

Retired U.S. Navy cryptologic linguist Scott Nelson studied the tapes and concluded they show a language not of human origin and were not faked.

What critics say

Mainstream scientists have not formally studied the recordings. Skeptics suggest people, known animals or tape effects, and note that sound alone cannot identify a source.

Sources

Mansi Champ Photo Disputed

1977 · photo · Champ

In 1977, while on a family vacation, Sandra Mansi photographed what looks like a long neck and head rising from Lake Champlain beside a dark hump. It is the most famous image of Champ.

Mansi later lost the negative and could not recall exactly where she took the photo. Without them, nautical expert Philip Reines could not confirm the object's size or distance.

What supporters say

Analysts are reported to have found the print was not faked or retouched, and Champ fans see it as strong support for a large animal in the lake.

What critics say

Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford suggest a log or tree trunk, and note the bay where it was said to be taken is only about 14 feet deep.

Sources

Dover Demon Sketches Unexplained

1977 · document · Dover Demon

On April 21 and 22, 1977, three teenagers in Dover, Massachusetts, reported a small, pale creature with a large watermelon-shaped head and glowing eyes. Bill Bartlett, 17, saw it on Farm Street; John Baxter, 15, on Miller Hill Road; and Abby Brabham, 15, on Springdale Avenue the next night. Plotted on a map, the sightings form a line more than 2 miles long.

Bartlett drew the creature and signed his sketch with an oath that he saw it. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman investigated and gave the creature its name. Bartlett has said for decades that he did not make it up.

What supporters say

Coleman and the witnesses reject animal explanations, saying a foal or moose calf would not stand upright or perch on a wall. Separate witnesses gave matching details.

What critics say

Police called it likely a school vacation hoax. Others suggested a foal or moose calf. Joe Nickell proposed a snowy owl lit by headlights. Benjamin Radford noted 1977 was the year of Star Wars and Close Encounters.

Sources

Freeman Footage Disputed

1994 · film · Bigfoot

Paul Freeman, a U.S. Forest Service employee, shot video in 1994 in a remote, gated part of the Blue Mountain watershed. The tape shows him casting small tracks, then adult tracks near water, then figures he said were adult Sasquatches, including a disputed moment where an adult seems to lift a juvenile. Freeman had already reported seeing a reddish-brown, nearly 8-foot creature near Walla Walla, Washington, in 1982.

Freeman also supplied many footprint casts, some said to show dermal ridges like fingerprints. The footage was later spoofed in Kokanee beer commercials, which made it widely known and also widely joked about.

What supporters say

Anthropologists Jeff Meldrum and Grover Krantz studied Freeman's casts closely, and Meldrum bought his cast collection, citing dermal ridges. Some investigators think the video is genuine.

What critics say

Most say the video is too low in resolution to prove anything. Veteran researchers Rene Dahinden and Bob Titmus considered Freeman an attention-seeking hoaxer, and he was reported to have produced man-made hair samples.

Sources

The Ohio Howl Unexplained

1994 · audio · Bigfoot

In late autumn 1994, Matt Moneymaker, founder of the BFRO, recorded a series of three long, moaning howls in Columbiana County, Ohio, near the Ohio River. A neighborhood dog can be heard barking in the same recording.

The BFRO posts the audio and a spectrogram in its evidence library. It became one of the best-known 'moan howl' recordings and is often played on podcasts and TV.

What supporters say

Bigfoot researchers present it as an example of a vocalization they do not link to any known local animal.

What critics say

Skeptics note that the BFRO itself makes no firm claim about the source, and that coyotes, people and other animals can make long, moaning calls.

Sources

1994 Ohio - Moaning Howl - BFRO

Beast of Bodmin Skull Explained

1995 · body

In 1995 a big cat skull linked to the 'Beast of Bodmin' in Cornwall, England, was taken to the Natural History Museum in London as proof of a large wild cat on the moor.

Examiners found it had been cut from a leopard-skin rug. The UK environment department has since said it has received no credible reports of wild, breeding big cats in Britain in recent years.

What supporters say

Big cat researchers say one bad skull does not explain decades of sightings, and point to real captures such as the puma Felicity in Scotland in 1980.

What critics say

The skull came from a rug, not a wild animal.

Sources

British big cats - Wikipedia

Skookum Cast Disputed

2000 · cast · Bigfoot

On September 22, 2000, a Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) expedition in Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Mount Adams, Washington, made a large plaster cast of a body print in mud by a wallow. The trip was being filmed for the TV show Animal X. Researchers believed an animal had reached for bait while lying down to avoid leaving tracks.

The cast covers about 15 square feet. Grover Krantz, John Bindernagel and Jeff Meldrum examined it. Hair found at the site was mostly elk hair, and elk, deer, bear and coyote tracks were noted nearby.

What supporters say

Supporters read the shapes as the forearm, hip, thigh and heel of a reclining primate. Meldrum reported skin ridge patterns he linked to primate feet.

What critics say

Skeptics say the print matches a resting elk, and Dr. Anton Wroblewski made photo comparisons to show it. Investigator Matt Crowley showed how casting artifacts can mimic skin ridges. Skeptoid argues the find was treated as sensational rather than scientific.

Sources

Texas Chupacabra Carcasses and DNA Explained

2004-2010 · dna · Chupacabra

Starting in 2004, several hairless, gray, odd-looking dog-like bodies turned up in Texas and were called chupacabras. A rancher near Elmendorf killed one in 2004. In 2007 Phylis Canion found one near Cuero after losing about 30 chickens. More followed in Blanco County and Hood County.

DNA testing kept finding canines. Mike Forstner at Texas State University found Canion's animal was a near-perfect coyote match, and a later UC Davis test called it a coyote and Mexican wolf hybrid. UC Davis linked the Elmendorf animal to a coyote with sarcoptic mange. Texas A&M called the Hood County animal a coyote-dog hybrid with mange.

What supporters say

Phylis Canion disputes the DNA findings and maintains her animal was something unusual.

What critics say

Biologist Barry O'Connor tied the look to mange caused by the Sarcoptes scabiei mite, which causes hair loss and thickened skin. Experts also note that dogs often kill by neck bites, which can make prey look drained.

Sources

Gable Film (Michigan Dogman) Proven hoax

2007 · film · Michigan Dogman

In 2007 a grainy 8mm-style film surfaced online that looked like old home movies of a Michigan winter, with snowmobiles and wood chopping. In the final seconds a dark, hairy creature charges the camera and the film cuts out. Many viewers took it as proof of the Michigan Dogman.

The Dogman legend itself had grown after DJ Steve Cook played his song 'The Legend' as an April Fools' prank on Traverse City radio in 1987. Listeners called in with their own stories. Later, Mike Agrusa confessed to making the Gable film as a hoax.

What supporters say

Before the confession, some Dogman researchers saw it as the best footage of the creature.

What critics say

Its maker confessed. Paleontologist Darren Naish notes the creature was a person in a ghillie suit.

Sources

2008 Georgia Bigfoot Body Proven hoax

2008 · body · Bigfoot

In 2008 Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer said they had found a dead Bigfoot, 7 feet 7 inches tall and 500 pounds, while hiking in north Georgia. They held a press conference with Tom Biscardi, who calls himself the 'Real Bigfoot Hunter,' and the story went global.

Steve Kulls, who had promoted the find, watched the frozen body thaw and saw a rubber foot. The pair admitted it was a costume. Reports say they had received money as an advance. Stanford anthropologist Richard Klein, whose name had been linked to the project without his knowledge, said there was virtually no chance it was real.

What supporters say

No researchers defend it; Bigfoot investigators helped expose it.

What critics say

A confessed hoax that critics see as a money grab and a blow to Bigfoot research credibility.

Sources

Ketchum DNA Paper and Erickson Project Disputed

2013 · dna · Bigfoot

Veterinarian Melba Ketchum of DNA Diagnostics announced in November 2012 that she had sequenced Bigfoot DNA. Her paper came out in early 2013 in the DeNovo Journal of Science, a journal she had bought and renamed; it was the only paper it ever published. She claimed Sasquatch is a hybrid of human females and an unknown hominin, from 111 samples.

Some samples and video came from the Erickson Project, a Bigfoot research group funded by Adrian Erickson. Footage of a sleeping hairy figure nicknamed 'Matilda' was sold with the paper. Researchers linked to the project said they filmed at baited sites in several southern states.

What supporters say

Ketchum said mainstream journals rejected the work for political reasons and later suggested a conspiracy to suppress it. Matt Moneymaker said he believed the Matilda footage showed real animals.

What critics say

Geneticists found the mitochondrial DNA was ordinary human DNA, suggesting contamination. A Houston Chronicle test of the data found opossum, black bear and human material. Critics noted the paper bypassed real peer review.

Sources

Sykes Hair DNA Study Explained

2014 · dna · Yeti

Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes and colleagues, including the Museum of Zoology in Lausanne, asked the public for hair said to come from Bigfoot, the yeti and other 'anomalous primates.' They received 57 samples and ran DNA tests on 30. The results appeared in Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2014.

None came from an unknown primate. Most matched bears, cows, horses and other known animals, and one was human. Two Himalayan samples, from Ladakh and Bhutan, matched an ancient polar bear sequence, which led to speculation about an unknown bear or a hybrid.

What supporters say

Sykes argued the work showed cryptid claims can be tested properly, and suggested the Himalayan samples might point to an unusual bear population.

What critics say

Eliecer Gutierrez and Ronald Pine showed that the short DNA fragment used cannot tell brown bears from polar bears and concluded the samples were Himalayan brown bears. Ceiridwen Edwards and a colleague also criticized the analysis and publicity.

Sources

Lindqvist Yeti DNA Study Explained

2017 · dna · Yeti

A 2017 study led by Charlotte Lindqvist tested samples said to be from yetis, including hair and other remains held in the region.

The samples came from brown bears, Tibetan blue bears, Asiatic black bears and a dog. National Geographic reports that this supported Daniel Taylor's long-held bear explanation.

What supporters say

Believers note that a small set of samples cannot disprove the yeti, and that the yeti is also a cultural and spiritual figure, not only an animal.

What critics say

Scientists see the results as matching the bear explanation for physical yeti evidence.

Sources

Thylacine Footage Claims Disputed

2017-2021 · film · Thylacine Sightings (Tasmanian Tiger)

The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was declared extinct after the last known animal died at Hobart Zoo in 1936. Video claims keep appearing. In 2017 the Booth Richardson Tiger Team released trail camera footage recorded in November 2016 near Maydena, Tasmania.

In February 2021 Neil Waters, president of the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia, posted video he said showed a family of three thylacines. He pointed to stripes, a stiff tail and the right ear shape.

What supporters say

Searchers argue that sightings continue, and a 2023 study led by Barry Brook suggested the species may have survived into the late 1990s or early 2000s.

What critics say

Nick Mooney put the 2017 animal at about a one-in-five chance of being a thylacine, more likely a spotted quoll. The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery said the 2021 animals were most likely Tasmanian pademelons. Mooney also criticized the 2023 study's data.

Sources

Loch Ness eDNA Survey Explained

2018 · dna · Loch Ness Monster

In 2018 a team led by Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago collected 250 water samples across Loch Ness. They sequenced the environmental DNA and compared it with global databases to list everything living in and around the loch.

Results announced in September 2019 found no reptile DNA and no shark, sturgeon or catfish DNA. Eel DNA turned up at nearly every site. The survey also picked up humans, dogs, sheep, cattle, deer, badgers, foxes and birds.

What supporters say

Gemmell said the data cannot rule out giant eels, which some Nessie fans see as keeping a real-animal explanation open. He also said there may be a monster, 'we didn't find it.'

What critics say

Skeptics say the lack of reptile DNA rules out the plesiosaur idea, and that eel DNA alone says nothing about eel size.

Sources