The cryptic roots of cryptozoology

 

Robert W Chambers, inadvertent 
founder of cryptozoology?

"Cryptofiction! Science Fiction and the Rise of Cryptozoology" is an article by Justin Mullis, published in "The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape" from 2019. It´s a skeptical take on cryptozoology, the quest for hidden animals (known as cryptids), usually monstrous ones (think Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and such). 

Mullis argues that the roots of cryptozoology can be traced back to science fiction stories. He never makes the connection to UFOs and ufology, but that seems to be the most obvious parallel example. If Mullis is right, cryptozoology has less to do with traditional folklore than you might expect (and even less with real zoology). Perhaps it could be seen as an evolving form of modern folklore? Cryptozoologists (or rather believers in the existence of so-called cryptids, since they are usually not trained scientists) are in effect re-enacting science fiction stories in real life. Mullis points out that cryptozoologists, cryptid-seeing eye-witnesses and newspapers articles about these pursuits sometimes make explicit references to science fiction. A subconscious acknowledgment of the connection? Even the so-called father of "scientific" cryptozoology, Bernard Heuvelmans (who was a real life zoologist) was something of a romantic, influenced by the fiction stories of Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle, de facto modelling himself on their heroes.  

Most of the themes of later (post-World War II) cryptozoology can be found in fiction writing from the latter half of the 19th century and early part of the 20th ditto. One example is the Verne novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864/1867), another is "In Search of the Unknown" (1904) by none other than Robert W Chambers. Many of the themes later treated by cryptozoology as factual emerge here in fiction form: large beasts that have survived from ancient times at remote locations, subterranean caverns and water-systems, but also quasi-mythological creatures such as amphibious humanoids. (Some cryptozoologists believe even in such.) Also important were the supposedly factual claims by Carl Hagenbeck about a surviving dinosaur in the interior of Africa. There were also many fiction stories on the same theme. The real life inspiration seems to have been the excavations of brontosaurian fossils around the world. Of course, the idea that dinosaurs have survived somewhere in the Congo is a popular belief among current cryptozoologists...

One of the first observations of the "typical" Loch Ness monster (the folkloric beasts of Loch Ness looked very different) during the 1930´s was probably inspired by a dinosaur in the film "King Kong". The first modern report of a so-called Thunderbird (an oversized condor-like bird) was a fiction story presented as fact, published in the magazine "Saga" in 1963. There are other examples also of how cryptozoologists become interested in certain monsters only after these have been popularized in fiction. Mullis argues that this is the case with Megalodon, an extinct species of super-sized sharks. The classical horror flick "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954) inspired reports of strange events clearly modeled on iconic scenes in the film. The most peculiar example is the cryptozoology claim that some artificial lakes harbor lake monsters, for instance Herrington Lake and Kentucky Lake in the US state of Kentucky. Even this has a previous fiction analogue, Hal Grant´s short story "The Ancient Horror" from 1928, published in "Amazing Stories" magazine. The recent paranormal turn in cryptozoology (I didn´t realize there was one) can be explained by the Netflix series "Stranger Things", although here there seems to be cross-fertilization with real occultism, since the series is inspired by John Keel´s ideas (Mullis underplays Keel´s occultism in favor of his previous career in science fiction). 

Does this mean that cryptozoology suffer from the "fact-fiction reversal" often found in occult and conspiracist subcultures? Mullis thinks that the explanation is much simpler. Cryptozoology is an attempt to re-enchante the world, including science itself, in a situation where official science has become frankly *boring*. Cryptozoologists don´t consciously oppose science, rather they want to see a return to the time when the scientist was (supposedly) a romantic and heroic explorer braving the uncharted territories of the world. I think this neatly explains why most cryptozoologists don´t *really* care about recently discovered species of deers or bovines from Indochina, concentrating instead on more sensational creatures such as Bigfoot, Nessie, Yeti, Mokele-Mbembe, Mothman, and so on. Other mechanisms seem to be at play too, however, as seen from the connection between some cryptozoology and Young Earth Creationism (although one skeptic have argued that perhaps people visit the cryptid sections of creationist museums mostly due to their entertainment factor!).

The theory in "Cryptofiction" should be possible to test in real time. One: Write a popular science fiction story about rainbow-colored tarantulas from Mars. Two: Make a popular film about the same. Three: Watch how the eye-witness reports about such creatures flood the pages of tabloid magazines. Bingo!  But OK, perhaps that´s *too* far fetched. How about a Bigfoot hanging with black bears, or something like that?

Of course, none of the above means that "they" aren´t out to get you!    

Link:

Cryptofiction! Science Fiction and the Rise of Cryptozoology