Dr KARL SHUKER

Zoologist, media consultant, and science writer, Dr Karl Shuker is also one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world. He is the author of such seminal works as Mystery Cats of the World (1989), The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (1993; greatly expanded in 2012 as The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals), Dragons: A Natural History (1995), In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995), The Unexplained (1996), From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997), Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), The Hidden Powers of Animals (2001), The Beasts That Hide From Man (2003), Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (2010), Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013), Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture (2013), The Menagerie of Marvels (2014), A Manifestation of Monsters (2015), Here's Nessie! (2016), and what is widely considered to be his cryptozoological magnum opus, Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors (2016) - plus, very excitingly, his first two long-awaited, much-requested ShukerNature blog books (2019, 2020).

Dr Karl Shuker's Official Website - http://www.karlshuker.com/index.htm

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my ShukerNature blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my published books (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Eclectarium blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Starsteeds blog's poetry and other lyrical writings (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

Search This Blog


PLEASE COME IN, I'VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU...

PLEASE COME IN, I'VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU...
WELCOME TO SHUKERNATURE - ENJOY YOUR VISIT - BEWARE OF THE RAPTOR!


Tuesday 7 July 2009

LOOK OUT, LOOK OUT, THERE'S A DINOSAUR ABOUT...IN ALBUQUERQUE!

Wearing my 'Operation Congo 1985' Fortean Times mokele-mbembe t-shirt with pride (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Over the years, there have been a number of so-called 'living dinosaur' reports filed from the USA, describing a mystery reptile seen running erect on its hind legs and likened by its startled eyewitnesses to a small bipedal dinosaur. I pesonally consider it likely that these sightings are based upon encounters with escapee monitor lizards (varanids), which can indeed run for short bursts on their hind legs.

However, this very morning I received a letter from a longstanding colleague of mine, English zoologist Prof. John L. Cloudsley-Thompson, that contains a very different, and hitherto-unreported, American mystery dinosaur report:

"During 1969, I was a National Science Foundation Senior Research Fellow at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, U.S.A. One evening, my wife Anne and I were invited to dinner by an anthropologist we knew. He told us how the driver of the school bus was driving to collect the children when he saw a large animal step over the fence at the side of the road. Some weeks later, he saw our friend's children with a dinosaur book. He claimed he had never seen a picture of a dinosaur before and the animal he had seen was exactly like the picture of Diplodocus. So our friend advised him to keep a camera in the bus. He saw the animal once again, but he had forgotten the camera!"

Apart from the extraordinary thought that there could be anyone out there in the States who had reached adulthood without ever having seen the image of a dinosaur before, this is a very intriguing account, to say the least!

If you can shed any light on it, or know of similar reports of American long-necked quadruped dinosaur-lookalikes - veritable mokele-mbembes in miniature! - I'd love to hear from you!

Me holding a mokele-mbembe-type model (© Dr Karl Shuker)


3 comments:

  1. Whilst I too find it hard to believe that anyone born in the 20th century could reach adulthood without seeing a picture of a sauropod, I know people do! I shake my head in disappointment but some people just aren't remotely interested in such things.

    A dinosaur on a road well traveled enough for a school bus is seen twice by the same person but, so far, there are no other reports? Hmm... that gives me reason to be a bit more incredulous.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So that would be a diplodocus, one of the largest dinosaurs known, trolling round modern-day New Mexico.Doubtless picking it's way through all the crashed UFO wreckage and tiptoeing past the Air Force/alien bases.Hmmmm....
    Can't help wondering whether the driver took the long way round going back with the schoolkids.

    ReplyDelete
  3. lol! You forgot to mention how it visited Elvis in his hideaway cave too! Of course, the animal allegedly seen by the driver surely reminded him of a Diplodocus only in shape, not in size. But I take the point made by both of you that it's all very unlikely - though this can be said for much of cryptozoology. However, it was an unusual, hitherto-undocumented report, so I thought it worth recording here, just in case it proved not to be unique. All the best, Karl

    ReplyDelete