Loveland, frogland

 

Bizarre tall tales about large and sometimes dangerous over-sized frogs. Yes, frogs. Cryptid frogs. Dude. 

PS. I actually reviewed the book mentioned in the concluding section. Tallest tales ever!

Fantastic beasts and where to find them

Vogelkop

 

Credit: J J Harrison

A bird built this. Therefore God. 

A Satanist in West Papua

 

I blogged about West Papua before, so I might as well link to this content. Taylor (alias The Antibot) is a self-proclaimed Satanist and witch who grew up as a Christian missionary kid in New Guinea, specifically the Indonesian-controlled Western half. In this video, she reflects on her experiences. I never heard the expression "Main Character Syndrome" before...

Kill it before it glows

 

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A motley collection of "cryptid" sightings. Some are barely believable stories about bioluminescent spiders and frogs. Others are frankly unbelievable. A glowing lake monster in Lake Erie? A pterodactyl which looks like a UFO? Yeah, that´s likely...

But sure, it´s entertaining.      

Interstellar secrets

 

Does the federal government classify information about interstellar objects as HORRENDEOUS as they are SQUAMOUS to stop a RUGOUS UNIVERSAL PANIC from ENGULFING Homo sapiens (sensu stricto) as we know it??? 

Well, at first I almost thought so, but naaah, it was just standard military secrecy (and red tape). When Avi Loeb (yes, *that* Avi Loeb) and some co-workers studied the trajectory of a certain meteorite which had impacted the sea off New Guinea in 2014, they suspected it may have been the first ever interstellar object observered within our solar system (and on Earth). Their study was published in 2019. However, to conclusively confirm the above, they needed data from military telescopes...but the US Space Command wasn´t very keen on sharing it. Obviously. No conspiracy here, just good ol´fashion security clearence! Which you don´t have, sorry. 

In 2022, the military published their own study, pretty much confirming the civilian science team´s original conclusions. Note that in 2017, another interstellar object had been confirmed: ´Oumuamua. Which Loeb argued could have been a UFO/UAP. So now you can go ahead and spin a conspiracy theory about it! At the time, The Scout was regarded as the first interstellar object ever to be observed inside our solar system, but if Loeb & Co (and the Space Command) are right, then the nameless meteorite has the primogeniture...     

An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, classified info reveals

Secret government info confirms first interstellar object on Earth

Regression to the mean

 

 

Africa and Papua New Guinea still have a fertility rate above replacement level. Be afraid, White boy, be very afraid! :D

Oh, and the third clip shows one of "our" Western cultural deviations... 

Winter everywhere

 

“A Year on Planet Earth” is a four-part nature documentary about…essentially everything. 

I just watched the “winter” episode, which takes us to such diverse places as the African savannah, the jungles of New Guinea, and Svalbard. Well, at least there´s winter at the latter place! Arctic night, too. The polar bears, seals and reindeer could pass for wintery animals. Maybe the penguins in the Antarctic, too. “Dancing” riflebirds in the rainforest? Elephants?! Not so much. 

The nominal point is that all these animals are active during the season *we* call winter, but in reality, I think they just wanted to show some (admittedly good) footage of various Animalia as filler on some nature channel…

Waiting for Tom Navy

 

The above is AI:s take on the arrival of John Frum and Tom Navy to New Guinea. The century seems to be wrong, though.

It struck me that perhaps our own predicament isn´t so far off from that of a cargo cult. Our rituals include demanding more money for CERN and fusion power research, building windmills, avoiding certain "offensive" words and symbols, and (I suppose) make dank memes about trans-humanism. Some of us probably worship AI in secret!

If we do this, it seems, a "Tom Navy situation" (or is it singularity) will apparently manifest itself and then...everything will go back to normal again. As in perpetual progress, and then some. 

Nothing like those stupid Melanesian Natives, naaah.  

Thylacines among us

 

A mildly skeptical YouTube video about supposed post-extinction reports of thylacines on New Guinea (from where the thylacine disappeared thousands of years ago). It seems people still se them here and there, often in the hills. While the animal´s existence sounds plausible enough, there are some problems with the idea, too. 

For instance, tribal hunters don´t wear thylacine skins - and they seem to hunt virtually all large mammals on the island. Another problem is that thylacines resemble large dogs, and such a breed actually exists on New Guinea: the so-called "singing dog", a distant relative to the dingo. Feral and wild(?) populations exist in the highlands.

Surviving thylacines on Papua (singing or not) would be fascinating, but misidentification with said doggie can´t be ruled out. The YouTuber suggests that it could also be a kind of cope, since we haven´t been able to find any surviving thylacines on Tasmania, and not for want of trying...

Two of each kind

 

Two very short pieces on “fringe cryptozoology”, one of them about creationism in cryptozoology. While not wrong, I don´t think it really explains why young earth creationists (YECs) are often interested in cryptozoology.

It has to do with the literalist reading of the Flood story in Genesis. If Noah brought two individuals of every animal species (or at least “created kind”) onto the Ark, this number must have included dinosaurs, pterodactyls, bipedal apes and other animals usually deemed extinct by modern science. I suppose a YEC *could* claim that they died out shortly after the Flood, but a more intriguing possibility is of course that they are still around – hence the interest in cryptozoology. If animals which modern science claims have been extinct for millions of years are still around, indeed, if animals from all “geological periods” in Earth history really live together right under our very noses, then “evolution” becomes a problematic concept. At least from a YEC perspective.

That being said, I also suspect that the emphasis creationist cryptozoologists put on surviving dinosaurs and pterodactyls isn´t a co-incidence. Dinosaurs are sexy, pardon my French, so obviously an expedition to Africa to find a live mokele-mbembe will get more media attention than, say, trying to prove that ground sloths died out only recently (cuz who cares).

Of course, the “cultic milieu” might also be in play here, but the more fundamentalist the Bible interpretation, the less likely it is that “rejected knowledge claims” will be accepted just because they are unacceptable to the Establishment. They must be sifted through the KJV first. UFOs survive the test if they are deemed demonic. Neo-dinosaurs survive the sifting, too, but what about bipedal hairy monsters that are too human-like? But I suppose they could be fitted in somewhere in a “Biblical” worldview, perhaps as Nephilim… 

Creationism in cryptozoology

Zooform phenomena

Cannibal geopolitics

 

Breitbart News goes Woke? Or are they just trolling Joe Biden? LOL. 

Papua New Guinea slams Joe Biden for "cannibals" remark

Not enough evidence, plz check in at White House

 

Copilot dreams about the Annunaki again...

The pushback against "disclosure" continues...

Professor Avi Loeb (who claimed that ´Oumuamua was an alien scout) supposedly made a silly mistake when searching for crashed UFOs in the Pacific Ocean. 

Meanwhile, both the Pentagon and NASA says there is no evidence for ETs ever visiting our tried and tested blue dot, but NASA nevertheless remains agnostic as to the exact genesis of the "UAPs" (i.e. UFOs). Pentagon blames misidentification of classified US spy balloons and ditto planes. I suppose *they* should know. 

The fourth link below goes to Live Science´s section on Extraterrestrial Life, which is continuously updated.

I´m about 70% sure that the "typical" UFOs are indeed military balloons, airplanes or drones. It´s still down from 100% until recently. However, given the highly contentious nature of these claims, I feel the aliens would have to land at the White House lawn and check in with ol´ uncle Cornpops before the majority of the high IQ population will believe in them.

If they check out The Donald at Mar-a-Lago, everyone will assume it´s a publicity stunt! Or start Star Wars for real...   

"Alien technology" or passing truck? 

Pentagon says no evidence for UFOs, aliens

NASA says no evidence for aliens, but can´t explain UFO origins

Extraterrestrial life

The body found

 

It´s actually quite funny that the media creates a panic (or is it a silly season) everytime some carcass of a sea animal washes ashore. The term "globster" for seemingly mysterious carcasses was apparently coined by notorious sensationalist Ivan T Sanderson. I assumed it was Charles Hoy Fort (who was definitely on the same wave length, LOL). 

This week, the unidentified fishy object is a "mermaid globster" (no less) from Papua New Guinea. Or strictly speaking the small Simberi Island a bit north of the PNG mainland. The experts are *baffled*, baffled I say, except of course they really aren´t, with guesses ranging from a whale of a tale to the pudgy dugong, but alas, nobody guessed a plump mermaid on a suicide mission.

The natives of the volcanic island, who presumably have better things to do, didn´t take any DNA samples and promptly buried the rottening mass of ectoplasm at an undisclosed location. Well, at least the media spared us the details!

So it seems we have to wait a few months until the next globster comes onland, hopefully with its monstrous mer-squid-megalodon DNA intact...  

Mermaid globster found in New Guinea

The singing thylacine

The thylacine is a large Australian marsupial believed to be extinct since 1936, but enthusiasts claim (or hope) that it has survived somewhere in the Tasmanian wilderness. The short piece linked to below argues that thylacines may have survived in New Guinea instead. 

Unfortunately, misidentification cannot be ruled out in this case, since there is a similar-looking placental mammal on the island: the New Guinea "singing dog". The animal also seems ecologically impossible, according to some scientists. 

That being said, the eye witness accounts don´t sound entirely far fetched either, so perhaps thylacine-hunters should bribe the proper Indonesian authorities and aim straight for the Jajawijaya Mountains...  

Dobsegna

Thylacines in Indonesian New Guinea?

Crying Wolf in Irian Jaya?

Egg-laying mammals

 

Credit: Kolumbusjogger

"But anon, you can´t use terms such as primitive, ancient or strange when writing about Sir David Attenborough´s echidna. Don´t you understand that those are colonialist tropes?" 

My kingdom for an echidna

A spiny ant-eater named after David Attenborough (sic) has been rediscovered in New Guinea and all cryptozoologists just yawn or something...

But sure, Zaglossus attenboroughi isn´t a pterosaurian or anything like that!

Cargo cult

 

Avi Loeb, the Harvard professor who believes that the mysterious object ´Oumuamua was an interstellar space ship, claims to have discovered new evidence for UFOs and alien visits. More specifically some kind of metallic droplets found in the ocean off New Guinea. 

In the second clip, he speculates that aliens could use dark matter and ditto energy to traverse the great expanses of the universe.

Yeah, sure. Or maybe it´s just disinfo as usual, right? 

Journey to Sahul

 

Credit: Kanguole

“Denisova´s Mystery” is a French documentary from 2022 about the discovery of a “third human form” in a cave in Siberia. The docu features Svante Pääbo, who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for his extraction of DNA from Neanderthal bones. As for the “third form” humans (really more like the 57^th form at this stage), they are known as Denisovans, named after the Russian cave in which their remains were discovered.

The Denisovans were “archaic” humans and probably looked more like Neanderthals than Homo sapiens. Just like the Neanderthals, however, the Denisovans (who survived until about 15,000 years ago) have contributed to the gene pool of Homo sapiens. The documentary speculates that the Denisovans may be ancestral to both Tibetans and Chinese, perhaps giving the former the genes necessary to live at high altitudes. Apparently, Chinese researchers are intrigued by the possibility that the Denisovans may be the forefathers and Ur-mothers of the Chinese people. Dare I guess that some kind of nationalism may be behind this interest? Note also how recent science moves ever closer to the previously disregarded "multi-regional" hypothesis of human origins. 

The strongest genetic connection between Denisovans and any population of Anatomically Modern Men (and, I suppose, Women) has been found in New Guinea, principally in remote corners of the large island´s highlands. While Papuans are mostly of our own species, they must have mixed with Denisovans at some point in the very distant past. The French researchers raise some eyebrows over the presence of Denisovans at New Guinea. While most of the East Indies formed part of the Asian landmass during the Paleolithic, there was no land bridge between this area (“Sundaland”) and ancient Australia-New Guinea (“Sahul”). How did the Denisovans cross the sea?

What a remarkably silly question! Here is the obvious answer: they built rafts. Or even small boats. There, I solved the question for you. The question is either based on the idea that Stone Age peoples must have been “primitive”, or that pre-sapiens humans weren´t particularly sapient, and hence somehow couldn´t have done it. In reality, it´s clearly the other way around: they could and they did. That the Denisovans later may have lost that knowledge, becoming forever marooned in the New Guinea highlands with a bunch of cannibals of the more sapient persuasion, doesn´t disprove this. Even Stone Age cultures may have experienced cycles of rise and fall, the rise in this case being the phase of exploration. One might even speculate that the *fall* of some Denisovan land culture could have pushed a particularly clever remnant onto a journey of exploration…

There is clearly a lot more to find out here. Not just about the robust and archaic Denisovans, but also about our own gracile and modern prejudices.  

Among real men and man-eaters

This is a fascinating documentary about two of the largest and least accesible mines in the world, Ertsberg and Grasberg in New Guinea, more specifically the Indonesian-controlled western part of the island, here called Irian Jaya. The production has an almost entertaining "colonial" slant, with the White Man (or brave Americans with very distinct cowboy accents working for The Great Mining Company) cast in the role of masculine conquerors of Nature at its most hellish. The Natives of the area turn out to live on Stone Age level, and are rumored to be cannibals (although everyone interviewed claims they are "really quite nice"). Don´t watch this if your alma mater was a left-liberal community college! 

That being said, the engineering feats of the blancos (and the occasional Indonesian) *are* impressive. The mines in question are at an elevation of about 18,000 feet (circa 5,400 meters), being literally situated on top of mountains. The hills in turn are surrounded by dense jungle and swampland. Roads, seaports, pipelines and airstrips? Non-existent (until the mining company needed them and built them). The old mine at Ertsberg used a large aerial tramway to get workers and equipment up the mountain, while the Grasberg mine has an almost crazy road system crawling up the hillside. The enormous trucks used at the mine must be taken apart into smaller pieces and transported up the mountain, to be re-assembled at their end-destination. 

While the Ertsberg mine was depleted long ago, the Grasberg ditto is still operating. It´s the world´s largest gold mine and second largest copper mine. It´s worth is estimated to 40 billion dollars! 

The documentary also mentions a notorious hoax, involving the Canadian exploration company Bre-X, which claimed to have found an even bigger gold deposit in Borneo (also on Indonesian territory). When the fraud was exposed, Filipino geologist Guzman (who had worked for Bre-X) was found dead and the death declared a suicide, but one of the guys interviewed in this documenatary almost jokingly says that Guzman probably got away and is enjoying his money somewhere in the Philippines! 

Things *not* mentioned here, but found on Wikipedia, include the salient facts that the mines have been attacked by a local armed independence movement (yes, our old friends from the OPM), and that several strikes have broken out among the workforce. 

I´m sure leftist environmentalists would love to hate the Grasberg operation, if they even know about it. Unfortunately for the local Young Greens, in order to de-carbonize our modern economies, we need vast amounts of copper. And Grasberg is the second largest copper mine in the world, remember? 

There is no way around this: if you are an idealistic Green who thinks electric cars will save the world, you are just as responsible for Grasberg as the most based cornucopian. You own it now. This is yours. Unless, of course, you want to go back to the Stone Age and live like the Papuan Natives, in a 40,000-year perennial state of tribal war and cannibalism... 

My arachnophobia just got worse

Another link to Karl Shuker´s crypto-zoology website, this time about supposed observations of giant spiders. And I do mean huge - the size of a dinner plate, a chihuahua or...even larger.

Of course, we all "know" that such creatures are impossible in Earth´s present atmosphere, since spiders (and insects) breath through trachea, which imposes absolute physiological limitations on their size. 

OR SO WE ASSUMED UNTIL KARL SHUKER DID MORE RESEARCH ON THE MATTER!!!

It turns out that one oversized arthropod, the coconut crab (a crustacean) has evolved a novel organ for breathing, since it lives exclusively on land. 

So why not spiders?

My arachnophobia just got worse. Let´s hope all the reports detailed in the linked blog post below are drunken tall tales or misidentified frying pans, chihuahuas or coconut crabs... 

Giant spiders: monstrous myth or simply mayhem?