Friday 16 February 2018

On the Track of Unknown Animals




I recently attended a lecture by cryptozoologist, Richard Freeman, on the matter of unknown or unexpected animals and his attempts to prove their existence. It was a great talk and covered various beasts such as the Orang Pendek, Thylacine, Almasty, Olgoi-Khorkhoi and others. What came across was his enthusiasm for the quest as he has undertaken various expeditions across the world under the aegis of the CFZ. That includes such far flung places as Sumatra, Tasmania and the Gobi Desert.

His stories about intolerable heat, parasites, dysentery and various other afflictions in the face of research made me think my excursions to Loch Ness were no more than a walk round the block in field research terms. So I take my hat off to him and wish him well in his endeavours as he continues in the tradition of Heuvelmans and Sanderson "on the track of unknown animals".

What also struck me was his disdain for zoologists whom he described in somewhat flowery language and the prejudice in which they hold people such as himself. Richard has a degree in zoology and continues in the tradition of the zoological explorers who tracked down the Mountain Gorilla, Okapi and Komodo Dragon. It seems the negative bias of such so-called learned people does not stop with the Loch Ness Monster.

Which is somewhat surprising as the search for the possibility of surviving hominids in the form of the Orang Pendek or even the less sensational survival of the well documented Thylacine is a degree of magnitude below so called relict plesiosaurs. The problem seems to lie partly in what he calls "armchair sceptics" who never once went into a jungle or across a desert. Sitting in their labs or standing in their lecture halls, they have assumed the world is largely explored and the likelihood of large animals being discovered is next to nothing.

Richard thinks he is "that close" to getting scientific evidence for his two favoured animals, the Orang Pendek and Thylacine. What he does not need is a group of "experts" carping from the sidelines and offering nothing in the way of encouragement. But one question did come to mind as I considered what he had said.

If, for example, the presence of the Thylacine is finally proven by live capture or carcass, what does that say about eyewitness evidence? The thylacine became extinct in 1936 when the last captive one died. Since then there have up to 4,000 claimed sightings of the creature along with inconclusive films and photographs.

However, like sightings and pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, the pronouncement from science is that the Thylacine does not exist. At this point, there is no carcass, live specimen or close up photographs to allow zoologists to move in that direction. However, if a Thylacine is eventually found, what does that say about zoology's assessment of the anecdotal evidence?

It means that a percentage of the eyewitnesses were indeed correct in what they claimed to have seen. It means that the misidentification-hoax theory used to explain these things away is flawed because it was a theory that always produced a negative conclusion as regards species existence.

For now, the misidentification-hoax theory stands relatively unscathed because no cryptid claims have been validated and so advocates of the theory can continue to claim it is the best theory. However, the arrival of a dead or living Thylacine will blow this theory out of the water and will have ripple effects for sceptical treatments of other cryptid phenomena, including the Loch Ness Monster. I will bet that proof of a thylacine will come before those for surviving hominids or aquatic monsters. When it does, critics of cryptozoology will be in for a rough examination.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com






24 comments:

  1. Unknown animals??? Now this is right up my street!! Could Loch ness harbour an unknown animal or at least used too? A tullimunstrem type maybe? I think its possible ....Roy

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  2. I remember back in the 80's a zoologist had a close up sighting of a Thylacine when he'd pulled over in his pick up truck out in the bush. I can't remember the details but he wasn't believed or was told it was a misidentification. It seems that even an expert who knows what he is looking at doesn't actually know what he is looking at. Like you say GB only a living or dead specimen will do.

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    1. That was zoologist Hans Narnding who saw an adult male thylacine from around twenty feet away.

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    2. No, he was believed, his sighting led to a two year search for the animal. He was never told it was misidentification, and his report was taken extremely seriously, the only conclusion was that there was no supporting evidence found.

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    3. Thanks for the correction there Gareth L. Many years can play a trick or two on the mind but the basis of my recollection was still pretty much there. Perhaps there is more hope for our Thylacine friends than most people realise.

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  3. It seems like at least two decades that we have been "this close" to evidence of Thylacine. I thought the Orang Pendek was pretty much accepted by local scientists; just not by the West. By coincidence, this popped up just yesterday: https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/918825/Mythical-ape-man-Orang-Pendek-caught-on-camera-Sumatra-Indonesia

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    1. It looks more human than ape. It could be a member of the orang-kardil, a race of pigmies said to live in the jungles of Sumatra still uncontacted by civilization.

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  4. BTW, while I am here, does anyone know the whereabouts of Alan Jones who painted some famous Nessie sightings for Nicholas Witchell's "The Loch Ness Story" back in the 1970s?

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  5. If we find a thylacine, then years of 'scientific' protestation will have been wrong. And we can't have that. We also can't have the logging industry in Tasmania put out of business due to the still protected status of the thylacine. One man reporting a sighting to a local ranger was told to basically let it go, and implied that he couldn't officially acknowledge what they knew about the situation.
    I have a degree in a science, it doesn't make me great, it just gives me a bit of a voice. The people standing in the way of knowledge (that in no way damages anyone) are anti-science. Just saying that we need repeatability in a system (which is obviously impossible with eyewitness reports) does not make someone a scientist.

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  6. Some of the videos ive seen of the thylacine or supposed thylacine are very promising. There is a real chance they are not extinct...The scottish wildcat is supposed to be extinct apart from scotland but i know there is some living only 3 miles from my doorstep in wales! How many i dont know but i know someone who shot one by mistake thinking it was a fox. But nobody believes the wildcat has survived anywhere apart from the scottish highlands! Im sure there are a few more suprises out there!...Roy

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    1. How did you find out the animals near you were actually of the wildcat species rather than just feral cats?

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    2. Alrite Martin. He said it was no doubt a wildcat. The fur..the size..and the stripey tail. He took a friend up later and his friend confirmed it too. And a few weeks later i was talking to a lad in a pub and mentioned loch ness and he asked if there was wildcats there then he told me his grandfather used to go hunting at night in my town and saw wildcats ...in exactly the same place my mate shot one( though i didnt tell him that) ive kept it quiet as i dont want them bin hunted....cheers Roy

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  7. I'm not sure if I totally agree with you GB. As you say, the Thylacine is a far more likely cryptid (or one more likely to be discovered and legitimized) than Nessie. And that's the thing: each case is entirely different. To the point where I'd suggest that scientifically and theoretically they bare little relation and success in the capture of either impinges not a jot on the likely existence of the other.

    But sure - if the Thylacine is discovered it does call into question of the validity of completely dismissing 4000 sightings rather arrogantly and out of hand. But what other metric is there other that capturing one? Without that binary definition of proof people would invent all sorts of legitimate creatures like the chimera or unicorn. And here's the kicker - the Thylacine, however probable it's existence may be (I'd personally reckon there's an 80% probability it does) it's still not been caught.

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    1. We should also keep in mind that if a live specimen of a thylacine is discovered one day, that doesn't mean that any of the dismissed 4,000 sightings were of thylacines!

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    2. None of the 4000 claimed sightings?!

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    3. I didn't say none, although that's possible.

      A more generous way of putting it is that the discovery of a living specimen does not automatically mean that every one of the 4,000 dismissed sightings were definitely of thylacines.

      Nessie provides the reason why: as your own work has demonstrated GB, its history is rife with cases of mistaken identity, wishful thinking, hoaxers and attention seekers as well as genuinely intriguing possibilities. Many of these have been revealed and analysed on this website. The history of Thylacine sightings is also likely subject to the same kind of issues; the difference is that the Thylacine is/was a known animal. The same is not the case for Nessie.

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    4. I think my argument still stands. People report thylacines. A thylacine appears, so a proportion of eyewitness testimonies were not misidentification.

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  8. Interesting stuff. I wonder who decides if something has gone extinct. Surely nobody knows for sure. I have just googled the tasmanian tiger and some of the youtube films look very good.Ive also googled Scottish Wildcats after Roy's interesting story and its says there is no more than 400 left in the highlands.How anyone knows that well your guess is as good as mine.It says they went extinct in England and Wales about 150 years ago and interestingly it says that North Wales was a big stronghold for them
    Are you North or South Wales Roy? I think there is every chance some have survived and as they are nocturnal creatures they could stay out of sight. All great stuff to read and plenty of mysteries out there.

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  9. "However, if a Thylacine is eventually found, what does that say about zoology's assessment of the anecdotal evidence?"

    Here's the thing: anecdotal evidence is not emperical evidence - it is not part of the scientific method. If a living thylacine is discovered and captured, or documented in a way that incontrovertibly proves it's continued existence, then that will be emperical evidence.
    In that eventuality, anecdotal evidence will still be "this one time when I was out fishing I saw a flash of grey going behind a bush. I'm certain it was a thylacine and it surprised me so much it made me lose a fish that was that big." All but worthless, in other words. It might give a hint that something is there, but if nothing is found or made of it, what use is it?

    Richard Freeman is out there, searching for orang pendaks and thylacines? Good for him. He's looking for that emperical evidence. If Richard Freeman finds that evidence? Good for him. He'll have brought orang pendaks or extant thylacines from the purview of fish stories and pseudoscience into the realm of actual science. If Richard Freeman finds nothing, if no-one ever finds anything, if it's proved orang pendaks and surviving thylacines don't exist? Well then, still good for him. He's helped prove the null hypothesis, but he's also been chasing pie-in-the-sky.

    Martin Curran says his degree in science gives him a voice. I've got a degree in zoology myself. But even before that, my education hammered into me what constitutes the practise and records of science. I think this is why it shocks me to see similarly-trained people, or those who otherwise know full well what 'science' means, downplay and even scorn it's demands. There's a built narrative - not a new one, but this is possibly the most blatant example of it - that 'zoologists' are some group of shady, conspiratorial villains keeping the 'truth' concealed, simply because they rightly require hard evidence. Even that requiring hard evidence is 'anti-science'! Can you hear yourselves!?
    The conception of science and evidence is so warped here, that, as an example, Roy can proudly and disdainfully state that he 'knows' there are wildcats in Wales because a mate of a mate in a pub told him. Just as Hopkarma declares that Indonesian scientists 'know' orang pendaks exist, despite having no physical evidence to prove it to themselves, let alone the wider scientific community. Just as, even, people 'know' the LNM exists despite the lack of solid proof.

    In this kind of environment I have to wonder if 'admitting' to a BSc actually does give me a voice, rather than marking me as a pawn of the zoological illuminati in some eyes. I'd say what you people need to be taken seriously - besides evidence - is to get rid of your overriding emotionality, your toxic bitterness, your persecution complex that makes you imagine you're the plucky underdogs, who'll eventually be justified in standing up against 'the man', as if this was some cheap Hollywood flick. I've said before in these blog comments that I'm not opposed to the idea of something in Loch Ness, but the fact that this blog and it's comments are less about doing the science (despite all the camera-trap posts) and more about crying into your pint, is what's making me more and more skeptical. Not the scientific establishment, but your reaction to it.

    Better armchair skepticism than obstinate credulity.

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    1. I agree with you Warren. I think part of the issue is the lack of serious scientific research and the complete dismissal of the entire body of eye witness sightings. Serious zoological research would solve the issue either way but zoologists have ignored the eye witnesses (or photos) and won't research properly. Which in turn leads to frustration on the "believer" side. It's a perfect catch 22.

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  10. Forgive me if I'm wrong Warren JB but perhaps that's what one could call an overriding emotional reaction.

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  11. Warren JB. I didnt say a mate of a mate told me! A good friend of mine told me he shot one and in fact he took two other people to view the dead body later cus they didnt believe him! They both said it was defo a wildcat.so that makes 3 people who saw it! Think u got mixed up with when i said he took a mate up to see it. The lad in pub was a diffrent lad who told me his grandad saw a wildcat out shooting years ago....in exactly the same place..no coincidence there! Cheers...Roy

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  12. One of the problems at loch ness is when sceptics cant explain certain sightings they then say it must be a lie. I think Warren has fallen into this trap.

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