Serbian man kills shark...but what kind of shark?

Dragan Stevic of Serbia killed a large shark that had been 'terrorizing' people at the famous Egyptian resort Sarm El Sheikh, injuring 4 and killing 1 person. The image above is the shark he killed.

He was apparently drunk and decided to go jump into the ocean, but when he came down he landed on the sharks head and killed it instantly. You can read the report in full here: http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/17081/48/

Now, there is a HUGE problem here...the shark they photographed is not a known man killer, it's a BASKING SHARK, one of the darlings of Cryptozoology. It eats plankton and is harmless...yet the Egyptian locals are hailing this man with killing the beast that has been attacking them. The true culprit is still out there, the man killed a harmless shark and now everyone is relaxed. Why? Because it's huge and no one botherd to figure out what kind of shark it was before declaring everything safe again.

Classic case of mistaken identity and drunken stupidity.

The Canvey Island Monster

The Canvey Island Monster is the name given to an unusual creature whose carcass washed up on the shores of Canvey Island, England, in November, 1954. Another larger specimen was found in 1955 in the same area.

The 1954 specimen was described as being 2.4ft long with thick reddish brown skin, bulging eyes and gills. It was also described as having hind legs with five-toed horseshoe-shaped feet with concave arches - which appeared to be suited for bipedal locomotion - but no forelimbs. The second was similar but larger, at about 3.9ft and weighed about 25lbs. This one was fresh enough for the eyes, teeth and nostrils to be studied but no identification was made for either creature. The 1954 specimen was creamated after a zoologist made a cursury investigation and determined it not a threat to the public.

Fortean journalist Nicholas Warren carried out an investigation into the 1954-55 sightings in 1999. Unable to find any official determination of what the creatures were, he did find out that local fishermen thought they might be angler fish. The pronounced fins on an angler fish might be misidentified as legs. (angler fish picture below)


I for one think it might not have been an angler, if only for the fact that the locals, the same ones that claimed itmight be years later, never brought that up when the creatures were first discovered. Therefore, in my opinion, this case is still open to debate.

The Bloop

The Bloop is a mysterious noise picked up by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1997. The image above is what they recorded when the sound occured.

Traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W near the southern tip of South America, was detected several times by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array using Navy equipment meant to detect Russian submarines.

It was louder then the loudest known animal, the Blue Whale, and seems not to be man made but also doesn't match any sound made by animals. It has been brought forward that it could have been icebergs cracking or something like that but it's still not confirmed to have come from some geological source; many think it was some undiscovered animal that lives in deep water.

Another noise that makes scientists pause is the "Slow Down", a name given to a noise that slows down over a seven minute period. The sound was detected at 15°S 115°W and has been picked up several times each year since 1997. It is similar to the sound of friction, so this one has been postulated to be the noise of friction as ice passes over rock. (Image of the Slow Down below)


What these noises truly are is still the topic of debate the world over. But with more and more advances in technology, we may find the answers sooner rather then later.

The Beast of Bladenboro

The Beast of Bladenboro was first reported in 1954 in Bladenboro North Carolina.

Several killings of livestock had the locals stumped and afraid, with some reporting a large cat or wolf like creature skulking around their farms and homes during the attacks. The livestock had broken jaws and were apparently drained of blood, akin to the Chupacabras of South America.

And in 2008 attacks were happenning again so more investigation occured and most now think that the Beast was an errant Cougar like the one pictured above. But it is still odd that some reported a wolf like creature...no opinion has been brought on what that could have been, but it may have been either a large coyote or a stray that happened to be in the same area.

The Adjule

The Adjule is a canine cryptid reported in North Africa in and around the areas of the Sahara and Mauritania. The nomadic Tuaregs report it as looking like a dog or wolf but now is concidered an isolated population of African Wild Dog.

Alternative names are kelb el khela ("bush dog") for the male and tarhsît for the female as well as Kelb-el-khela. And in 1992 there was a reported sighting by hunters of a dog that resembled and African Wild Dog and hunted in packs, though this hasn't been confirmed.

The Adjule could be an isolated population of the AWD's but could also be a remnant population of some other African canine species; until we have proof it could go either way.

Mongolian Death Worm

The Mongolian death worm or olgoi-khorkhoi, "large intestine worm", is a creature purported to exist in the Gobi Desert. It is described as a bright red worm with a wide body that is 2 to 5 feet long; the ability of the worm to spew forth acid that will turn anything it touches yellow and corroded (and which would kill a human), as well as its purported ability to kill at a distance by means of an electrical discharge. (The image above is by Pieter Dirkx)

Professor Roy Chapman Andrews wrote a book, "On the Trail of Ancient Man", in 1926 that brought the Death Worm to the wider world; before that it was known mostly to native Mongolians only. He was not convinced of it's authenticity but the locals he spoke with, though none had seen it themselves, were adamant about it's existence and described it fully.

It is reported to be red in color, sometimes described as having darker spots or blotches and is said to have spiked projections at both ends. They are believed to resemble polychaetes, looking much like a sea-dwelling Bobbit worm. (pic below)


The worm lives underground, hibernating most of the year except for when it becomes active in June and July and is said to come to the surface whenever it rains, much like an earth worm. The local Mongolians also claim it has a fondness for the goyo plant, so they tend to steer clear of them.


What this creature could be is still a mystery, as is the way it is said to kill. While stingrays, eels and catfish are the most widely known animals with electrical capabilities, over 500 different creatures harbor the ability to create an electrical shock. Elephant fishes, bonytongues, and stargazers are all fish with various degrees of electrical power. No worms that I know of use venom, though some are poisonous. So this creature is completely new and unusual...and many think is merely a local legend like the Bogeyman of America, a story used to keep children in once the sun goes down. I however believe that the Mongolian Death Worm is a real creature and will eventually be found to exist. Exactly what it is though I have no idea.

Maltese and Black Tigers

Maltese tigers are said to be blue in color with dark gray stripes reported mostly from the Fujian Province of China. The term "Maltese" comes from domestic cat terminology for blue fur, and refers to the slate grey coloration. Many images have been made of "Blue" tigers and well, they are really really blue; most people seem to ignore that "blue" in an animal means a steel or slate gray with a slight blueish tint to it.

Most of the Maltese tigers reported have been of the South Chinese subspecies though they've also been reported in Korea. Around 1910, Harry Caldwell, an American missionary and big game hunter, spotted and hunted a blue tiger outside Fuzhou and had this to say about it: "The markings of the beast are strikingly beautiful. The ground color is of a delicate shade of maltese, changing into light gray-blue on the underparts. The stripes are well defined and like those of the ordinary yellow tiger."

Maltese-colored cats certainly do exist. The most common are a domestic cat breed, the Russian Blue, and a variety of the British Shorthair, the British Blue, but blue bobcats and lynxes have also been recorded.

In isolated populations, mutations can occur so the odd coloring of a Maltese tiger isn't too far out of the possible, even if they aren't neon blue like most artists depict them. Below is what one artist (I do not have the credits so if anyone knows, please tell me!) thinks it may look like:


Black tigers are another that seem to pop up in Cryptid sightings but no photo of one (or the Maltese) is believed to exist. Black tigers are probably the result of a psuedo-melanistic sub-population, or in other words, their stripes are so close together to appear as a solid or nearly solid black fur pattern. Most black mammals are due to the non-agouti mutation. Agouti refers to the ticking of each individual hair. In certain light, the pattern still shows up because the background color is less dense than the color of the markings. Animals with psuedo-melanistic coloration are said to be the result of inbreeding. They're also said to be smaller, which could be a result of inbreeding as well or black leopards being misidentified as tigers.


In other words, Maltese and Black tigers may be sub-populations of actual species, isolated and inbred to the point that their coloring has changed drastically. Personally, with the fact that tigers all over the world are endangered or near extinction (if not extinct already) then this may be the answer to why these ones look the way they do. One day we may find specimens of each, but if we do I hope we shoot them with cameras instead of guns; live animals are worth more to science then dead ones in my opinion.