So the two great cryptzoological stories of the last week or so have been solved - apparently. First up is that bloody mammoth which was actually the better executed of the two media sensations.
The general opinion within the cryptozoological community both on this blog and elsewhere was that it showed a bear with a large salmon in its mouth. Now, it is claimed that the person who shot the original footage has come forward and denounced it as a fake.
Ludovic Petho came forward to say he shot the video that made headlines during a 10-day hike in Siberia's Sayan Mountains in 2011. He recognizes the footage as his own except for one thing: his original video never showed a mammoth.
"I don't recall seeing a mammoth; there were bears, deer, and sable, but no woolly mammoths. I had no idea my footage was used to make this fake sighting."
http://www.wtsp.com/rss/article/238502/58/Woolly-mammoth-video-a-hoax
And the Icelandic river monster?
Finland's Miisa McKeown has analyzed the video, matching up the position of the monster's head with relation to static reference points. Her conclusion? The "monster" is actually stuck in one place on the river. The snaky thing looks as if it's swimming upstream because water is streaming past it. It's the moving water that creates the illusion of a swimming snake.
It appears that the monster was nothing more than a piece of fishing net snagged in a river.
http://www.wtsp.com/rss/article/238502/58/Woolly-mammoth-video-a-hoax
The thing that I find particularly interesting is not that both videos were not what they pretended to be. I never thought they were. But that - if these explanations are true - they are completely at variance with what the cryptozoological community (who didn't believe in them either) thought that they were.
I have a sneaking suspicion that both these stories have some life in them yet!
No comments:
Post a Comment