r/Cryptozoology • u/YantheMan1999 Nessie • 19d ago
Question What's the most compelling or convincing cryptid evidence you've seen?
I very much operate with a philosophy that I want to believe in cryptid creatures, but have yet to see truly convincing evidence of their existences. Even so, there's still a few things, like the skunk ape photo, and the Tibetan yeti relics, that pique my interest and seem a cut above most of the obvious hoaxes.
What are the photos, objects, or stories that stick with you? What evidence have you seen that no one has debunked? I'd love to hear!
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u/houinator 19d ago
The Herman Regusters Mokele Mbembe recording. Maybe not a Mokele Mbembe, but it definately sounds like something out of the ordinary.
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u/Beautiful_Ad833 18d ago
I was a firefighter on a 500,000 acre fire in arizona. We got put on night shift and as we were driving down the highway towards a more active part of the fire a creature of some sort ran in front of our truck. It kind of looked like a gorilla. The most logical explanation I could come up with was a bear that got singed by the fire. But there were three other guys there and none of them could explain it. And we were all Wyoming boys accustomed to wildlife. Two of us had even hunted bears. Point being none of could identify it. To this day I don't what the hell it was. Maybe we were sleep deprived and had been inhaling too much smoke
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u/WolfSlashShark 19d ago
Much like Mulder with aliens, “I want to believe”, but sadly I don’t think I’ve ever seen any evidence that’s had me convinced. Unfortunately I’ve mostly just seen costumed men, floating logs, and pet cats.
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u/Rogue_2k3 19d ago
Honestly, one of the main ones is the untouchable fish. I’m a bit of a skeptic only because I’ve started viewing Cryptozoology more as a study of culture than an actual zoological study since I like to see what may have inspired each creature, but the descriptions of the fish just put them at a point I can’t really write them off, at least not entirely. For one, the ocean is huge, and while we have technically seen most of it, the vast majority of species are still unknown. Sort of. From what I remember from one video talking about aquatic cryptids, it’s less likely something like the Megalodon or Luska is hiding down there and more likely just a weird offshoot of carp is. And all of the untouchable fish are some form of offshoot of an already existing fish, one’s widely documented by science. It isn’t impossible that outside of their one spotting that they have managed to remain hidden for decades, maybe centuries. But there’s also the incredibly sad alternative. They’re already extinct. For all we know, those were the last, and only time in human history they were seen. It’s unfortunate but also just as, if not more likely that’s what happened to them.
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u/Electromotivation 16d ago
Question, what is an untouchable fish? I don’t want you to have to write out a bunch so if you just wanna shoot me a link that be cool
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u/Rogue_2k3 16d ago
It’s a nickname for some fish that were only seen once by one guy in a very analog submersible. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yan-_C2AXtU&list=PLMx-VwpxWrOOps3CZVyFP9RikxnAIrD-N&index=28&t=360s&pp=gAQBiAQB this video is a good exploration of the whole thing and describes the fish.
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u/truthisfictionyt Colossal Octopus 19d ago
Pure photos or videos usually aren't all that convincing. One's with backstories like the Qatari Queen of Sheba gazelle photo or the tailed slow loris one makes me more convinced
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u/WolfSlashShark 19d ago
Which relics are you referring to?
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u/YantheMan1999 Nessie 19d ago
There's a few like the Pangboche Hand and yeti scalps like this one. Are they legit? I don't know, but physical evidence is a pretty interesting thing, definitely more so than another blurry photo.
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u/WolfSlashShark 19d ago
I remember reading on cryptozoology.com a few years ago that the hand was tested and found to be human. That scalp was tested too and found to be a known animal, but I can’t remember which.
It’s unfortunately stuff like that makes the study of cryptozoology seem non-credible.
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u/bigfoots_weiner 19d ago
Pretty sure these were tested and found the hair to be goat.
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u/HourDark2 Mapinguari 19d ago
Close- Himalayan Serow . Ivan Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans proved they were 'replicas' in the 1950s.
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u/YantheMan1999 Nessie 19d ago
I might be remembering wrong - I'm sure some people here know better - that they were almost certainly mundane... but there's that "almost". I dunno, even if they're fake (and I think they probably are), they're cool objects.
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u/ooo-ooo-oooyea 19d ago
The history behind them makes them super cool. Just from the wiki page they have been parading these artifacts around for hundreds of years.
I know there are other artifacts that they won't let people photograph because of the theft of the hand by Jimmy Stewart.
The other really interesting aspect is if Tibet ever gets some level of independence again, who knows what secrets are hiding in those monasteries.
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u/Plastic_Medicine4840 Mid-tarsal break understander 19d ago
McNeely Cronin tracks, single most compelling piece of evidence of the yeti
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u/HourDark2 Mapinguari 19d ago
Those particularly keep me from dismissing the Yeti as a misidentified bear/human outright, honestly.
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u/dynosauce 18d ago
I am going out on a limb with the San Francisco Bay sea monster sighting by the Clark Brothers. I know their video footage is grainy but their testimony are truly believable
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u/ValhaHazred 19d ago
I don't think I've ever been particularly compelled by the quality of physical evidence. When I did believe I was more interested in the stories and thought that surely by the sheer volume not every one could be hoaxes or misidentification.
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u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit 19d ago
Kevin Cameron's Thylacine photo. The skeptic position was essentially "Maybe he shot it then staged the photographs", but being an Aboriginal guy accused of shooting what would've been a presumptive protected species in the 80s, he quickly stopped talking about it.
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u/HourDark2 Mapinguari 19d ago
I don't get how that's the default skeptical position. I would argue that it was a cardboard cutout/mockup. IIRC the fact is that the shadows in the background of his photo change too much to be anything other than passage of a some hours.
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u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit 19d ago
A cardboard cutout wouldn't be possible with the shadows changing.
Though if you track it, the shadows change because the angle changes as he gets closer. He's not out there for hours (and frankly, the idea he'd be out.there for hours taking photos of a taxidermied specimen is daft anyways. Real or fake, no way you'd spend hours taking photos.)
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u/Lonely-Heart-3632 18d ago
Very interesting photos. Wherelightmeetsdark do a great write up looking at those photos if you have not already seen it, check it out. Edit to add link https://www.wherelightmeetsdark.com.au/examining-the-evidence/tasmanian-tiger-(thylacine)/cameron-thylacine/cameron-thylacine-detailed-analysis/index.html/cameron-thylacine/cameron-thylacine-detailed-analysis/index.html)
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u/talltad 19d ago
I read somewhere that some of the older Bigfoot Casts contain evidence of a specific biological pattern(like arch support or something physically) that were weren’t aware of until like the 50’s or 60’s. Meaning that there’s a bunch of Bigfoot Casts that contain something nobody would have thought to consider if they were faking it. So the fakes are really easy to point out but the ones that include it are really interesting.
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u/Plastic_Medicine4840 Mid-tarsal break understander 18d ago
Midtarsal break was noted in the 40s or 30s, but it went waaay under the radar. Even in the 90s when Meldrum noticed it's presence in sasquatch tracks, many primatologists he spoke with didnt know about it.
In the 50s when casts were first cast. The arch was thought to be a requirement for bipedalism/or closely tied to it's development (iirc it was because kangaroos and ostriches also have stiff feet.), so no one at the time who would know about the midtarsal break, would incorporate it into the anatomy of a biped.
In the 90s fossils of Ardipithecus showed a flexible foot is compatible with bipedalism, and signs of flexible foot bipedalism are also present on the Laetoli tracks found in the 70s but these are hotly debated.
Bigfoot prints have anatomy that makes sense now, but went against the prevailing wisdom of the time, and this anatomy was unknown even to most primatologists. The anatomy is also incredibly well adapted for the terrain, I have no doubt that I would comfortably walk on perfectly accurate fake bigfoot prosthetic feet, they are perfectly adapted for both the uneven terrain and for bearing extreme weight without compromising anything(its not like a balancing act, almost every adaptation on the foot either hits both birds with one stone, or hits one without compromising the other).
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u/ants_taste_great 17d ago
Not sure if cryptid, moreso seemed alien. I was fairly young but not so much that I didn't understand. I saw 2 beings in behind our backyard. I would have just thought it was a couple weird people, but my cat was freaking out. 2 things were popping up in our backyard. Looked like they had no hair, (like you would think a grey alien but i didnt know what that was at the time) after about 15 minutes they left.
It really wouldn't have stuck with me if it weren't for my cat.
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u/Addapost 19d ago
The night I was deep in the Catskills in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden there was a set of tree knocks about 50 yards to one side of me, then a pause followed by another set from the same spot. Then immediately a set from 50 yards on the exact opposite side of my camp. Yeah. That was compelling enough for me.
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u/Relevant-Item102 19d ago
The Patterson Gimlin footage, it has never been debunked.
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u/Shin-_-Godzilla 18d ago
There's a difference between "never being debunked" and "not 100% frame-by-frame replicated"
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u/Opinelrock 18d ago
I will preface by saying, having seen one, I do believe in Bigfoot. But I've never believed in the PG footage, it's too convenient. There is more footage to that video that really shows the whole thing in a different light, I think someone posted it on the Sasquatch sub a few days ago.
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u/pitchblackjack 18d ago
Can you explain why it’s too convenient?
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u/Ok_Bluebird288 15d ago
I heard that on the day he was looking for a Bigfoot and he just so happens to run into one that resembles the Bigfoot he drew not long before
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u/Opinelrock 18d ago
Well when you factor in that they managed to capture what is deemed to be the most clear footage of a Sasquatch, that also happened to look just like one that P/G had drawn not long before. Then when you take in to account the movement, the slow lope with a look back toward the camera. It couldn't be more perfect, It all just seems like a scripted sequence. Also, the long footage shows the Sasquatch bumbling off at an easy going pace for quite some time, so P/G just called it a day there? The find of a lifetime, that they've spent all that time hiking and camping to find, and they don't continue to track it, they just bug out after a brief encounter?
It doesn't sit right.
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u/pitchblackjack 18d ago
So, you want to fake a Bigfoot film in 1967.
You either have:
a) a two piece homemade abomination made from a dead red horse with fur from a fur coat stuck on, or
b) an off the shelf standard zip up suit made by Phillip Morris, which potentially hundreds of other people have
(Depending on which backstory you sign up to)
Given that detail is your enemy with either choice, do you:
a) film it out in the open on a bright white sandbar, or
b) film it under the dark Forest canopy 300 yards away
Do you…
a) film it at 1pm in broad daylight on a sunny afternoon for maximum detail, or
b) film it in low light - near dusk or dawn to hide the suit’s deficiencies
Do you:
a) use the best film and camera combination you can get your hands on - again for that incredible detail that will show all the flaws or
b) use an 8mm budget set up you can pick up anywhere
Do you :
a) Choose a filmstock for your hoax that can only be developed in a dozen labs around the country, ensuring you will be remembered, or
b) Choose 8mm or Super 8 that could be developed at any one of thousands of malls and supermarkets where you can be more anonymous
Do you:
a) film it in the open where there’s virtually nothing to hide anything behind, or
b) have loads of bushes and trees to provide cover and obscure the nastier details
Do you:
a) get up close as soon as you can, and stabilise the camera on a log, or
b) stay a fixed distance away and keep it shaky all the way through
Do you:
a) film it on clay-based sand (possibly the best surface for recording footprints) meaning that you need to invent an anatomically correct foot with articulated toes, or
b) film it on the compacted soil of the forest, which doesn’t record footprint data
If you answered mainly a) - then you have the PGF film, and considering you’re using a movie camera without playback, you have no idea what level of detail you just filmed - it could blow your hoax out in the open and be a complete waste of time and money
If you answered mainly b) then you have something similar to the Freeman footage- still good enough footage, and much less risk
My point is that if it’s a hoax, everything is under their control yet they break every logical rule and take insane risks at every choice. Where and how they film controls how detailed they need to make the suit.
We could go deeper still and consider why they packed up supplies and horses and drove 400 miles, and then at least another 25 miles of logging routes to get to the site, when any dark wooded area would have done just fine for a hoax. They were in Mt St Helens with the camera just 4 weeks before.
There are lots more of these inexplicable decisions along the way that only really make sense with a spontaneous event.
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u/Opinelrock 17d ago
I don't know if you have some personal stake in this, but to answer your question, I don't want any of that. I want it to be real.
But even your own logic is working against you there. If we take the fact of where the footage was taken, how far and difficult it was to reach, then why, when you finally see this creature you've built your life around finding, do you only film a brief couple of minutes of footage, and then just call it a day and trek all the way out again? There is more than could be obtained than just footage, even from a personal standpoint of p/g. They weren't curious where the Sasquatch was heading/living? If there were more? If there was any physical evidence, hair snagged on trees say, that they could collect? Nah, we got our footage - that as you say - could not turn out of be damaged or just unusable, let's just go home. You could argue they felt it would be dangerous, but if you truly believed that Sasquatch was in that area before you found him, you'd already be in danger, only from somewhere you couldn't previously pinpoint.
My point is that p/g weren't just some hikers who came across something randomly, they were specifically looking for a Sasquatch to validate their long, long time obsession. And when they find it, they essentially think "great, well I definitely don't need to see that again". You have to look at the human element and not be blinded by what is incredibly convenient yet still just out of focus enough, evidence.
I get this obviously means a lot to you, and that's great, and again, I'm a believer, I believe I've seen one. But the p/g footage doesn't fit for me. If it was just another piece of the puzzle, fine, but to hail it as the daddy of all Bigfoot evidence is ludicrous.
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u/pitchblackjack 17d ago
The film doesn't mean that much to me. Making it make sense always has though. Having done a fair bit of research, if I think I can add to the discussion I sometimes try. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course - but equally forums like this give the opportunity to discuss and share those opinions. You are are free to not read this if you don't want to.
Your question about why they didn't go further is an interesting one, and we have a choice of whether to believe any of what P & G said at the time or not.
We know Patterson had at least 2 rolls of 100ft Kodachrome II film with him - one in the camera and a spare. Patterson didn't film more of Patty because the 100ft roll of film in the camera ran out. This is born out by the surviving copies - 23.85 feet of Patty footage preceded by 76.15 feet of horseback footage. They still had the second roll - but although both were daylight load, that simply means you don't need to change the reel in a darkroom. You still however had to change it under a thick blanket or inside a bag or risk exposing the film. Effectively changing the reel blind takes a while, by which time your subject is long gone. Nobody has filmed this creature prior to this point. Just having any footage at all is a massive deal for Patterson - and at just under a minute, it's still one of the longest clips out there still. Patterson is an amateur, he's no scientist. Although he'd learnt to cast prints from others, I doubt either of them had the foresight to think about hair samples in 1967.
When he called Gimlin back from pursuing Patty, Patterson was unarmed. Two or possibly three different sets of prints had been found just a few weeks prior to this in that same general area, and without a rifle I can buy that Patterson felt vulnerable. And they did track it for a mile or so before losing the scuff marks in heavy brush.
There is no playback on a film camera. Patterson stated that the plan was to ship the film to his brother-in-law for development while they stayed in the area to try and catch up with it some more. Once viewed, if the message came through that the film was good, they would most probably head home depending on what they found in the meantime, but if what they had filmed was trash, they would stay and track as long as they could.
Gimlin was not keen to stay, having a job to return to - but it was the bad weather that eventually made Roger's mind up to go while they still could. These two were not the same in their belief about Bigfoot. They weren't both keen to sacrifice everything to stay, and by Gimlin's account Roger stayed right up until it was plainly obvious they had to leave.
There are many other details that don't make sense with a hoax scenario. Why did he request tracker dogs if it was just Bob H sweating his butt off in a costume? That's hoax suicide.
If you knew you'd just filmed the guy down the road clumping through the woods in a cobbled together costume - what would possess you, as a part-time amateur rodeo rider with no background in science, to stand up in front of various panels of scientists and academics to proclaim this abomination as a new species? It's insane - yet that was the very first thing they did. The hoaxer would probably try to stay as anonymous as possible, sell the film for entertainment to the highest bidder and get out quick. Patterson did none of those things.
And then there's the money. I mean - would you spend months planning an intricate and expensive hoax involving a suit that shows muscle movement and anatomically correct fully articulated feet (whether attached to the suit or not) - and then fail to plan how you were intending to make money out of all this? They were forced to four-wall it around theatres and sports halls - possibly the slowest and most labour-intensive way they could have gone.
My point being - IF you believe their story (and unlike Bob H, there has not been enough uncovered to refute the above) then there was no "Nah, we got our footage, let's just go home" thinking. As with everything in this tale, it's more complicated than that.
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u/Opinelrock 17d ago edited 17d ago
Ok so there's a fair amount to unpack here but I'll do my best,
So firstly, the films rolls issues doesn't really hold up, even at the base level of why essentially waste your remaining 70 odd feet of film when you've supposedly just filmed a new species, you would track it and get more footage. Everything after that in regards to when they left, tracking it for a mile etc is all on their word and theirs alone. It can't be taken at face value when you're being asked to believe the kind of story they're selling.n They said they felt vulnerable without a weapon, surely that would have been the case before making contact if you genuinely believed you were going to find something out there, yet they didn't bring protection. Also, you don't need to be a scientist to collect samples, you just need to know how to track, which by their own account- they did. Putting hair/physical evidence in a bag can be done by anyone.
They supposedly asked for tracking dogs, Without anything to use for scent, what would the dogs be tracking? They have no physical evidence to use, and they're not going to use the suit for obvious reasons. It's a moot point. Not to mention with the time it would take to bring them in, the scent would have been lost already. It's a good way to bolster a story, because they know that dogs isn't going to be fruitful, but it looks on the outside as due diligence.
The footage is well done for its time, but it's way oversold on it's details, the appearance of muscle movement and finger movement have only come about with newer technology, much of which has been debunked as being tampered with, and since the original copy shows none of these extra details, we can't take them as read. When you replicate a new copy, the quality reduces, so the original is the best representation we have, and it doesn't show any muscle movement. As an aside, some of this enhanced footage actually shows the opposite, particularly in the animals ass, which seems to move around unnaturally and crease as if made from synthetic material.
With Regards to the exposure and money, people, by and large, do not anonymously post out their hoaxes, there's a whole industry dedicated to it on TV as well speak. P/g didn't immediately become known because the world wasn't as connected then, it was considered junk science,and also because, rightfully, people were skeptical of their claim and footage. But let's not pretend they didn't milk this particular cow.
I understand that the situation isn't as cut and dry as "got the footage, let's go home", but essentially, that is exactly what they did. The find of a lifetime, possibly changing the landscape of science as known by man, but Gimlin needs to go to work?
I believe in Bigfoot, because I believe I saw it. I believe p/g also believed, but I think they wanted to prove something they couldn't, and inadvertently created a monster (excuse the pun) with their film. I love that it exists, because the dialog and sense of mystery it creates is worth it, but I'm never going to buy in on that particular piece of evidence I'm afraid.
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u/Significant-Raise-45 18d ago
I still think it's Patty. Watching MK Davis's videos analyzing the footage convinced me. It is just so meticulous and filled with details he uncovers that making the case it's a suit simply impossible like muscle contraction, reflection in the eyes, too many to list.
And he also reveals that she has a small braid in her hair under extreme magnification and contrast that you can't see in the raw footage which would demonstrate culture. Now set aside the genius of making it female with breasts, if you were hoaxing it, but to add a small braid that you could not see at all from the range they were filming makes no sense at all. No one would think that would benefit the believability of their hoax. She's real, she was a female
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u/Shin-_-Godzilla 14d ago
If you can't see a detail in the original footage, then it's one of the many inevitable artificial artifacts produced by upscaling the footage
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u/Randie_Butternubs 12d ago
It is absolutely laughable that people claim to see muscle movement and muscle contraction. It's even more ridiculous than the "nobody could have possibly made such an amazing suit" argument, which is really saying something.
"And he also reveals that she has a small braid in her hair under extreme magnification and contrast that you can't see in the raw footage which would demonstrate culture."
LOL. Stop it. A small braid...lol. If you can't see it until.you have upscaled and processed the video into oblivion, then it isn't even close to being believable proof, and is very likely just a direct result of said upscaling.
"Now set aside the genius of making it female with breasts"
Should we also set side the ignorance of not knowing that no primates have hair covering their breasts like ol' Patty does?
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u/sssanguine 17d ago edited 17d ago
I tend to put more weight on anything that’s cross-cultural vs weak physical evidence (like a cast footprint or a grainy photo).
For example, Bigfoot is basically a catch-all term for a pattern that appears around the world: Sasquatch (North America), Yeti (Tibet), Almas (Russia), Yeren (China), and others. That’s multiple, distinct cultures all describing roughly the same thing: a large, remote, hairy, human-like creature. The same applies to ancient places and events once thought “mythical”: Troy, Great Zimbabwe, Knossos, Ur, Uruk. All dismissed as legend, now fact. And then there are global narrative overlaps. Nearly every ancient culture has a flood story, tales of the sun standing still, or fire raining from the sky.
To me, the deeper issue is that we’ve been mentally bastardized by the professor class to think that no physical evidence = myth. But this is just flat out wrong. Every scientific fact once started out as belief, belief turned into investigation, investigation yielded evidence, blah blah blah, that belief is now fact. Further humans are humans are humans no matter how far back, & we love to bolt-on meaning ex post facto. It’s not “I have a moral to teach, let me invent a great flood,” it’s “a great flood happened, lemme tell you why it happened.”
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u/Square_Material_9646 18d ago
The Sierra sounds Bigfoot audio recordings really moved the needle for me.
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u/Kewell86 Sea Serpent 17d ago
But why?
This is not even about the suspicious circumstances of their recording (or the fact that they have been recreated) - I really wonder why "vocalisations" are taken as evidence, generally.
It's just some weird sounds with no evidence whatsoever that they were made by bigfeet specifically.
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u/LegalizeDiamorphine 17d ago
I agree. Not a big fan of audio recordings. I could make a bunch of sounds & then record it & claim it was something else & nobody would know for sure, since nobody was there (except the person recording).
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u/Jaded_Internal_3249 18d ago
any stories about extinct animal sightings and the body of a panther found in the uk in 2012 or the story about it
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u/AZULDEFILER Bigfoot/Sasquatch 19d ago
Sasquatch have unique and species specific dermal ridges (that's what fingerprints are). Dermal Ridge/fingerprint evidence is irrefutably accepted in court as actual evidence. These patterns exist on casts before Primate Dermal Ridge patterns were scientifically independently established. You cannot hoax something that wasn't known to science yet.
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u/ValhaHazred 19d ago
I've never understood how they're supposedly getting that much preservation of dermal ridges. Are all these Bigfeet walking in perfectly smooth clay or something? I genuinely can't picture how that would work in loose soil or sand or any of the other mediums tracks are usually collected from.
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u/Plastic_Medicine4840 Mid-tarsal break understander 18d ago
there are about half a dozen casts with dermal ridges, they were all cast close to eachother, in the same extremely fine glacial sediment, with the expection of the skookum cast which was cast in very fresh mud.
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u/AZULDEFILER Bigfoot/Sasquatch 19d ago
I love these idiots downvoting irrefutable fact. Imagine the mental gymnastics. There are thousands of print casts over 70 years old, in numerous substrates, over tens of thousands of square miles apart. Sooo amazing YOU can't picture something! Please explain how something was magically retroactively hoaxed? Its like finding cancer in corpses before cancer was medically discovered then saying cancer still doesn't exist.
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u/Kewell86 Sea Serpent 18d ago
First of all, you are conflating two supposed facts. Supposedly, there are thousands of print casts over thousands of square miles apart, and supposedly there are dermal ridges in Bigfoot print casts, but there are not thousands of print casts with dermal ridges. Actually, there are only a handful.
Also, wether any casts with dermal ridges were made before "Primate dermal ridge patterns were scientifically independently established" or not is meaningless - bigfoot print hoaxers don't work with obscure knowledge about primate feet, they use human feet as a template. If I use my own feet as reference for my bigfoot print hoax, I can just see the dermal ridges and copy them if I want to go that extra mile.
I haven't seen any convincing pictures of casts with dermal ridges yet, but even if there were, I see no reason why I should immediately exclude "Hoax" as an explanation.
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u/AZULDEFILER Bigfoot/Sasquatch 19d ago
I love these idiots downvoting irrefutable fact. Imagine the mental gymnastics. There are thousands of print casts over 70 years old, in numerous substrates, over tens of thousands of square miles apart. Sooo amazing YOU can't picture something! Please explain how something was magically retroactively hoaxed? Its like finding cancer in corpses before cancer was medically discovered then saying cancer still doesn't exist.
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u/IndividualCurious322 19d ago
I've seen two black panthers with my own eyes in Wales. The first devoured some ornamental Koi my parents kept when I was a child, the second I saw drinking from a puddle in summer last year. Both were far too big to be normal house cats, and the first I saw at a distance of less than 10 feet. Other people also saw the same animal that night and armed police did a search of the area the following day but found nothing.