FINDING THE FEATHERED LIONS OF LARRY HAGMAN – AGAIN!

 

Did American actor Larry Hagman see something like this during his 'trip'?

My memory has always been akin to an exceedingly eclectic but generally well-organised, well-maintained filing cabinet whose innumerable drawers contain all of the myriad facts that I've acquired throughout my life, including the 40 years that I've spent researching and writing about cryptids, mythological beasts, and fantastical fauna (flora too) of every imaginable, and unimaginable, kind. Occasionally, however, a fact file somehow becomes misplaced, misfiled, or just plain missing. And so it was with the slim but stimulating file of the feathered lions.

Quite a few years ago now, I distinctly remember reading about some celebrity's autobiography in which he'd referred in passing to some feathered lions – enough in itself to attract my attention and thereupon file away this intriguing snippet for some future use. As the years passed by, however, and it remained unused and unreturned to by me, its details began to fade from my mind. Still, not to worry, I thought, I have it filed safely away in my physical archives as well as in my cerebral ones – until, that is, the subject came to mind again earlier this week, prompting me to seek out the relevant information in my archives and write it up at long last for ShukerNature. But could I find it? Not a chance!

Moreover, by now no longer able even to recall who the celebrity was in whose autobiography these ethereal entities had appeared, there seemed no chance of tracking anything down (online searches drew a blank). So I finally abandoned the subject, and started looking up a totally different one instead – at which point the Library Angel, aka the Seraph of Serendipity, clearly took pity on me, as has happened so many times in the past, to my undying gratitude.

 

If such an exotic creature as a feathered lion existed, what a spectacular sight it would be!

Opening on my laptop a cryptozoology-themed folder of chronologically-arranged files consisting of reports, articles, and other info downloaded by me from the Net during the year 2016, I started looking for the file that I needed for my new investigation, but there were a very sizeable number of files in it, and I had no idea of the specific date on which I'd downloaded the file in question. So I automatically rearranged all of that folder's files into alphabetical order instead, by file title, hoping to spot the file quickly by way of its title's subject. The titles were organised into columns, and while casually casting my eyes across and down a few of these columns before beginning the full painstaking scrutiny of each file title in each column, my eyes alighted upon one particular file title, and opened wide as they did so – 'Larry Hagman sees feathered lions'! Of course – Larry Hagman! Even before opening the long-overlooked file, its title alone was sufficient to usher forth the basic information that it contained, but obviously I still opened it anyway. And here is what I read.

The relevant information had appeared in a posthumously-published newspaper article recalling some of the wild events from Hagman's life that he'd documented back in his 2001 autobiography Hello Darlin': Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales About My Life. Hagman had of course been an American actor best known for his role as astronaut Tony Nelson in the 1960s fantasy comedy TV show I Dream of Jeannie; and, above all else, for his globally-acclaimed tour de force as ultra-villainous oil baron J.R. Ewing in the glossy mega-successful American soap Dallas, originally running from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, then revived in various spin-offs that began a decade later.

 

A multicoloured monarch of all that he surveys!

The newspaper article had been published back in 2012 (thus explaining why I'd not thought to look for it in the 2016 folder, the reason why it was in there and not in the 2012 folder being that I'd only learnt about this article and downloaded it on 7 June 2016, but I'd long since forgotten that small yet crucial fact!), by London's Daily Mail, on, of all days, 9 December (my birthday!), which was just over a fortnight after Hagman had passed away, on 23 November 2012.

Anyway, reading through this article it transpired that some time prior to 2001, feeling very stressed after always having been a total workaholic and perfectionist had eventually taken a sizeable toll upon his emotional well-being (a situation exacerbated after he had perhaps unwisely also decided to give up two longstanding vices – smoking and slimming pills – on the very same day), Hagman had sought aid, advice, and assistance from all quarters. Two years after his issues had begun, however, one of those he'd consulted now suggested that perhaps he should "drop some acid", i.e. try taking some tabs of the potent hallucinogenic drug LSD.

Although Hagman initially dismissed this idea, it became firmly lodged in his mind, until eventually he gave into temptation, and obtained some pure LSD tabs from none other than the late American rock singer/songwriter David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame, after he'd attended one of their concerts and had gone backstage to meet them afterwards. Even so, it still took Hagman a month before he finally summoned up the nerve to take one, and thereby experience his first trip. Here is how he described it:

Just a few moments after I'd swallowed a tab, part of the room I was in became a cave that was guarded by two feathered lions as well as octopus-like creatures with long, writhing tentacles.

So there it is, such that it is, simply a Hagmanian hallucination of the plumed and tentacled trippy kind, but nonetheless notable as the only reference to feathered lions that I've ever encountered (other than certain legendary lions with avian wings, documented by me in my book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery), albeit from a most unlikely source, and generated in a very unexpected fashion. Yet even though this case may not contribute greatly, therefore, to our shared global lore on fantasy felids, it is nothing if not interesting, and memorable – which is why it has compelled me to track it down almost a decade later, and document here on ShukerNature the exotic creatures mentioned in it.

 

Cave-dwelling ctopus-like creatures also featured in Hagman's drug-induced hallucination

Finally: all of the very eyecatching illustrations of feathered lions and cave-dwelling octopuses included here were created by me specially for this article yesterday, utilizing the Magic Studio image-generation program.

HIDING FROM THE HIDE? EERIE DEEPSEA ENCOUNTERS WITH ABYSSAL ABOMINATIONS

 

A photo-still from Encounter In The Abyss by Richard Svensson, depicting the nameless horror from the underwater abyss about to encapsulate the stricken shark while the terrified diver stood motionless, on a ledge at the abyss's edge, watching in petrified fascination  (© Richard Svensson)

The decidedly creepy cryptozoological report of a deadly underwater mystery beast documented by me here today is one of my all-time personal favourites, which I've included in several of my books and articles down through the years, and also previously on ShukerNature (click here). Now, thanks to a wonderful new animated short that brings the eerie encounter vividly to life for the very first time (full details at the end of the present blog article), I decided that it was time to revisit this terrifying denizen of a deepwater abyss and provide some additional information, so here it is.

In 1953, while testing a new type of deep-sea diving suit in the South Pacific, an Australian diver named Christopher Loeb encountered a Lovecraftian horror from the ocean’s unpenetrated depths. In my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997) and also in my previous ShukerNature coverage of it, I provided a much-abbreviated paraphrased version of Loeb's report, but here now is his full first-person account, as originally provided by Eric Frank Russell in his own book Great World Mysteries (1967:

All the way down I was followed by a fifteen foot shark which circled around full of curiosity but made no attempt to attack. I kept wondering how far down he would go. He was still hanging around some thirty feet from me, and about twenty feet higher, when I reached a ledge below which was a great, black chasm of enormous depth. It being dangerous to venture farther, I stood looking into the chasm while the shark waited for my next move.

Suddenly the water became distinctly colder. While the temperature continued to drop with surprising rapidity, I saw a black mass rising from the darkness of the chasm. It floated upwards very slowly. As at last light reached it I could see that it was of dull brown colour and tremendous size, a flat ragged edged thing about one acre in extent. It pulsated sluggishly and I knew that it was alive despite its lack of visible limbs or eyes. Still pulsating, this frightful vision floated past my level, by which time the coldness had become most intense. The shark now hung completely motionless, paralyzed either by cold or fear. While I watched fascinated, the enormous brown thing reached the shark, contacted him with its upper surface. The shark gave a convulsive shiver and was drawn unresisting into the substance of the monster.

I stood perfectly still, not daring to move, while the brown thing sank back into the chasm as slowly as it had emerged. Darkness swallowed it and the water started to regain some warmth. God knows what this thing was, but I had no doubt that it had been born of the primeval slime countless fathoms below.

Moreover, this may not be a unique report, for as revealed here by the online Encyclopaedia of Cryptozoology website:

According to Russian sources, at least two other sightings of the amorphous sea monster have been reported in local newspapers. Members of a Chilean hydrographic expedition to the South Pacific in 1968 told the press that they had seen an animal which resembled the Australian diver's "black mass," near an abyssal trench. A fatal encounter with such an animal allegedly occurred off Thailand in 2005, when a French scuba diver named Henri Astor told the press that he had observed a very large "strange brown mass" paralysing and killing a shoal of fish. Astor's unnamed companion allegedly disappeared after attempting to follow the entity.

 

Cirrothauma murrayi, a species of deepsea cirrate octopus (public domain)

In the past, a deepsea octopus has been offered as a possible identity for this disturbing creature, but as I discussed in detail within my book, a far more satisfactory candidate is a deepsea jellyfish, possibly akin to one of the known relatively shapeless types, such as Deepstaria enigmatica, which moves via peristalsis and lacks tentacles. This bizarre species remained undescribed by science until 1967, following its discovery by the famous French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau while exploring the deep waters of the central Pacific Ocean near Southwest Baker Island in a submarine called Deepstar 4000. It is known from the Pacific Ocean, Antarctica, and the Gulf of Mexico, but only at depths below 3,000 ft. Please click here and here to watch on YouTube a couple of short videos of this strange species filmed in its natual habitat.

Whereas all octopuses have tentacles, some deepsea jellyfishes do not. What they do have, however, are potent stinging cells called nematocysts on their bodies (and tentacles if they possess any), armed with venom that swiftly paralyses their prey. This would readily explain the immediate paralysis of the shark. Moreover, jellyfishes do not possess true eyes but they are equipped with sensory structures responsive to water movements. Consequently, the creature would have learnt of the shark’s presence by detecting its movements in the water. How lucky, then, that the diver had remained stationary!

 

Artistic representation of el cuero, the deadly Chilean hide (© Tim Morris)

Interestingly, Chilean legends tell of a very similar beast called el cuero or the hide, as it is likened in shape and size to a cowhide stretched out flat, with countless eyes around its perimeter, and four larger ones in the centre. As it happens, jellyfishes possess peripheral sensory organs called rhopalia that incorporate simple light-sensitive eyespots or ocelli.

Moreover, some jellyfishes also have four larger, deceptively eye-like organs visible at the centre of their bell. In reality, however, these organs are not eyes at all. Instead, they are actually portions of the jellyfishes' gut, known as gastric pouches, with the jellyfishes' horseshoe-shaped gonads sited directly underneath these pouches and also very visible (as in the familiar moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita).

 

Moon jellyfishes Aurelia aurita (© Tila Monto/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

So perhaps the deadly hide is more than a myth after all, lurking like so many other maritime horrors reported down through the ages in the deep oceans' impenetrable black abyss, but only very rarely encountered by humankind – which in view of the dreadful fate that befell the hapless South Pacific shark in 1953 may be just as well!

And now, as noted above, this chilling cryptozoological vignette has been brought to vivid life by longstanding friend and awesome Swedish animator Richard Svensson, aka The Lone Animator, in a wonderful 3-minute mini-movie entitled Encounter In The Abyss, and available to watch for free on YouTube since 8 August 2024 – just click here. Don't miss it!

 

Thumbnail image on YouTube for Encounter In The Abyss by Richard Svensson (© Richard Svensson)