HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT - TWO RECENTLY-REVEALED CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL EXAMPLES

 

What happens when you ask AI to generate an image of a tall bipedal tailless monkey confronting a gigantic octopus emerging from the sea onto the shore (Created by Dr Karl Shuker using Grok)

Cryptozoology is full of examples of cryptids that once their existence was finally confirmed officially by science were shown to have been long since known to the world anyway, but had somehow been overlooked, veritably rendered invisible – in other words, they had remained hidden in plain sight. So here are two recently-revealed additional examples.

 

MAPPING A CRYPTO-SPECIMEN

Cryptozoological specimens are notorious for being almost as elusive as the cryptids themselves, with a worrying tendency to vanish out of sight, never to be recorded again. So it is always a pleasant albeit rare surprise if such a specimen reappears somewhere, as was the case recently with one that has apparently been hidden in plain sight for quite some time.

On 26 August 2025, I was startled but delighted to learn from Florida resident and longstanding Facebook friend Adam Naworal that he had recently encountered a sample of tissue from the famous St Augustine globster. The sample was preserved and on public yet wholly unpublicised display in the map room at the St Augustine Historical Society – Oldest House Museum Complex – in Florida.

 

Aimee's photograph of the sample of St Augustine globster tissue (© Aimee & Adam Naworal, but free to use by any researcher)

As revealed in the above photograph snapped of this remarkable specimen by Adam's wife Aimee and included here with her and Adam's kind permission, it consists of several chunks of whitened flesh preserved in fluid (formalin?) inside a large vertical glass jar, labelled and firmly stoppered. The St Augustine globster is – or was – the huge rotting carcase that washed ashore on a beach near St Augustine during November 1896. Eminent cephalopod (octopus/squid/cuttlefish) expert Prof. A.E. Verrill from Yale University deemed it to be the remains of a hitherto-unknown species of truly gigantic octopus, but since then there has been a long-running dispute among scientists as to whether this is indeed what it was or whether, alternatively, it was simply the partial, highly-decomposed carcase of a whale, composed largely of blubber, and assuming an amorphous mass nowadays referred to as a globster.

Samples were taken from it at the time, and analysed, yielding contentious, contradictory results, but most of these samples were thought to have been lost or discarded. So this confirmed example at the St Augustine Historical Society is of special interest and scientific value, and now, thanks to keen-eyed Adam and Aimee, is duly documented here for cryptozoological posterity. Also, they have asked me to note here that they are making their photograph of this specimen freely available for all researchers to use at no charge, only a credit to Aimee is required – thanks guys! Incidentally, Adam has since informed me that the sample has now been taken off display, so it was extremely fortuitous that he and Aimee were visiting during the time when it was accessible for viewing by the public and were therefore able to place its existence on record.

 

AN INFERNAL FIND!

And staying with crypto-discoveries hidden in plain sight: Just two days before I learnt from Adam and Aimee about the St Augustine globster sample, another longstanding Facebook friend, Robert Schneck, had drawn my attention to an illustration that he'd lately discovered and had now uploaded to his Facebook page 'Historian of the Strange'. Prepared by German artist Hermann Wöhler (1897-1961) in c.1930, it was an exceedingly detailed line drawing entitled 'Inferno', depicting all manner of hideous monsters and other terrifying entities envisaged by him to be inhabiting Hell. But what had attracted Robert's particular attention was the creature depicted almost at the very centre of the illustration, because as he pointed out, it looked more than a little reminiscent of a certain alleged cryptid depicted in a notorious photograph during the early 1920s.

The cryptid in question was the so-called Loys's ape, reputedly encountered in the jungles on the border of Colombia and Venezuela by Swiss geologist Dr François de Loys while leading a party of explorers through this difficult, inhospitable terrain. The official narrative as provided by Loys was that they'd encountered two such creatures walking together on their hind legs and lacking tails. Threatened by them, the explorers shot one, the female, causing the male to flee. Taking the creature's lifeless carcase back to camp, they sat it on a crate, propped it upright with a long stick placed vertically beneath its chin, and photographed it. The carcase did not survive but the photo did, and for decades led to supposition that it portrayed one of the mysterious bipedal ape-like entities long reported from many different regions of South America, and inducing French/Swiss anthropologist Prof. George Montandon to formally dub their scientifically-undescribed species Ameranthropoides loysi.

 

'Inferno' by Hermann Wöhler, with the Loy's ape lookalike creature appearing almost dead-centre (left) and the hoax photo of Loys's ape (right) - please click dual image to enlarge it for viewing purposes (both images are now in the public domain)

Ultimately, however, long after Loys himself had died, one of his team's still-living members confessed that it had all been a hoax – the creature in the photo was nothing more than their pet spider monkey, which, after eventually dying, had been propped up and photographed (with its long tail either hidden or cut off) to yield the famous, but now infamous, Loys's ape picture. (The entire sordid saga of this hoax has already been documented by me in full here, here, and here on ShukerNature, so check it out.)

Bearing in mind that Wöhler's illustration had been created no more than ten years after Loys's photograph had first been published and had duly hit the headlines, it does indeed seem likely that this eyecatching image had directly inspired Wöhler to include a representation of it within his line drawing. For there is no doubt that the facial expression of Loys's ape as captured in the photo, with mouth agape and eyes staring widely, is certainly more than a little hellish, positively infernal, in fact! So, many thanks indeed to Robert for alerting me to a fascinating yet previously unrevealed and undocumented cryptozoological connection concealed within the art archives.

 

Another of my AI images, this time generated by Magic Studio, which took my verbal prompt to depict a giant ape confronting a giant octopus a little too far, inasmuch as it yielded a fascinating if wholly fictitious monkey-octopus hybrid! (Created by Dr Karl Shuker using Magic Studio)

This ShukerNature article originally appeared in the form of one of my regular Alien Zoo columns for the famous long-running British monthly magazine Fortean Times.

 

GLOBSTERS ABOUNDING! - PART 2: SEEKING GIANT OCTOPUSES… BUT FINDING ROTTING SPERM WHALES

Vintage illustration of a deepsea octopus, by Ernst Haeckel (public domain)

In Part 1 of this ShukerNature blog article (click here), I surveyed a wide range of globsters, including the celebrated Trunko, and I also chronicled a selection of reports featuring alleged giant octopuses – traditionally, the most popular identity for globsters. As now revealed, however, modern-day studies of these latter anomalous entities have unveiled a very different explanation for them.

UNMASKING THE GLOBSTERS, AND UNVEILING THE QUASI-OCTOPUS

Thanks to the advances in DNA technology during the past two decades, science now has a reliable tool with which to investigate and expose the hitherto-cryptic identity of globsters, and in the past few years this is precisely what has happened, with eye-opening results.

The first notable globster to be unmasked by DNA analyses was the Fortune Bay specimen from Newfoundland. In February 2002, a team of researchers led by Newfoundland molecular systematics expert Dr Steven M. Carr published their findings in the Biological Bulletin scientific journal, summarising them as follows:

"DNA was extracted from the carcass and enzymatically amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR): the mitochondrial NADH2 DNA sequence was identified as that of a sperm whale (Physeter catodon). Amplification and sequencing of cryptozoological DNA with "universal" PCR primers with broad specificity to vertebrate taxa and comparison with species in the GenBank taxonomic database is an effective means of discriminating otherwise unidentifiable large marine creatures."

Effective it has certainly been. One South Florida scientist with a longstanding interest in globsters is Dr Sidney K. Pierce, and in recent years he has led several studies of preserved globster remains, culminating in a detailed Biological Bulletin paper of June 2004 co-authored by Carr and several other researchers, which concentrated upon the Chilean globster but also examined samples from various additional specimens.

Chilean globster (© Dr Elsa Cabrera – Fair Use/Educational Purposes Only)

The team announced:

"Electron microscopy revealed that the remains [of the Chilean globster] are largely composed of an acellular, fibrous network reminiscent of the collagen fiber network in whale blubber. Amino acid analyses of an acid hydrolysate indicated that the fibers are composed of 31% glycine residues and also contain hydroxyproline and hydroxylysine, all diagnostic of collagen. Using primers designed to the mitochondrial gene nad2, an 800-bp product of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was amplified from DNA that had been purified from the carcass. The DNA sequence of the PCR product was 100% identical to nad2 of sperm whale (Physeter catodon). These results unequivocally demonstrate that the Chilean Blob is the almost completely decomposed remains of the blubber layer of a sperm whale. This identification is the same as those we have obtained before from other relics such as the so-called giant octopus of St. Augustine (Florida), the Tasmanian West Coast Monster, two Bermuda Blobs, and the Nantucket Blob. It is clear now that all of these blobs of popular and cryptozoological interest are, in fact, the decomposed remains of large cetaceans."

Yet how can a decomposed sperm whale transform in shape and texture so dramatically that it becomes a globster, sometimes even equipped with apparent tentacles? As I revealed in my book, Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), the answer is fascinating, and also has a notable precedent:

"There is a notable precedent for such dramatic misidentification when dealing with beached remains, which is known as the pseudo-plesiosaur effect. When a basking shark Cetorhinus maximus dies and its body decomposes, it undergoes a remarkable transformation. The gill apparatus falls away, taking with it the shark's jaws, leaving only its small cranium and exposed backbone, thus resembling a small head and long neck. The end of the shark's backbone only runs into the upper fluke of its tail, so during decomposition the lower fluke falls off, leaving what looks like a long slender tail. And to complete the plesiosaur deception, the shark's pectoral fins, and sometimes its pelvic fins too, remain attached, resembling two pairs of flippers. Little wonder, therefore, why a number of amazingly plesiosaurian carcases have been reported over the years, only for anatomical and biochemical analyses to expose them as sharks.

"Now, moreover, we have confirmation that an analogous transformation is responsible for at least some of the hitherto perplexing globsters that have come to light - a transformation that I propose should hereafter be referred to as the quasi-octopus effect. As detailed by Drs Pierce, Carr, and Letelier, after a whale dies its body can float for months, decomposing, until eventually its heavy backbone and skull dissociate from their encompassing skin-sac of rotting blubber, and sink to the sea bottom, leaving behind a thick gelatinous matrix of collagen - the tough protein found in skin and connective tissue. It is this mass of collagen, still encased in its skin-sac, that washes ashore, as a globster. Furthermore, if a few of the whale's ribs remain within the collagen matrix, and any 'fingers' of fibrous flesh are attached to them, these resemble tentacles [or even a trunk, in the case of Trunko]. And if the whale is a sperm whale, the spermaceti organ gives the resulting globster a bulky shape reminiscent of an octopus."

So does that mean that globsters are a dead-end as far as providing evidence for the reality of giant octopuses is concerned? Not quite, perhaps...

VERRILLY A GIANT OCTOPUS?

The grand-daddy of all globsters was washed ashore near St Augustine, Florida, on 30 November 1896. Its prodigious remains, pinkish-grey and pear-shaped, were over 6 m long, 1.6 m wide, and 1.3 m high, and were estimated to weigh 5 tons. What appeared to be the stumps of five massive tentacles were clearly visible in photographs taken of this monstrous carcase by local physician DeWitt Webb, as was what seemed to be a severed tentacle, measuring 8.7 m long and 20 cm thick. Webb sent a sample of its tough flesh to Yale University cephalopod (squid and octopus) expert Prof. Addison E. Verrill, who announced that the carcase had been a giant octopus, which he formally christened Octopus giganteus. Later, however, Verrill recanted, claiming that it was merely the spermaceti organ of a sperm whale.

St Augustine globster (public domain)

A second sample, sent to the Smithsonian Institution, has been tested on numerous occasions via several different techniques, and has yielded differing results. Whereas Pierce’s studies indicated that it was indeed of sperm whale origin, analyses by eminent Chicago University biochemist and longstanding cryptozoological investigator Prof. Roy P. Mackal strongly supported an octopus identity. However, the sample has been preserved for so long that it has probably been contaminated and rendered useless for detailed study - which would explain the greatly diverging results - unless future advances in technology can overcome this obstacle. If they can, then interested researchers should apply to the Institute of Creation Research (ICR) in El Cajon, California, for it is here that the only surviving sample of tissue from the St Augustine globster can be found, donated by Prof. Mackal in 2003 to the ICR’s Professor of Biology, Dr Kenneth Cummings.

Drawing of St Augustine globster by Prof. Addison E. Verrill (public domain)

How ironic it would be if the existence or otherwise of what would be (if real) one of the largest marine creatures alive today – the elusive giant octopus – is ultimately determined by this tiniest sliver of substance, the last remnant from one of cryptozoology’s most enduring enigmas. For a further picture and details concerning this globster, click here to access my ShukerNature-reprinted interview conducted back in the 1990s with Prof. Mackal.

THE MULTI-LIMBED MONSTER OF ANTIBES

In addition: A truly bizarre sea monster was allegedly sighted between Antibes and Nice in 1562. Oval in shape, with a pig’s head at one end and a trunked elephant-like head at the other, it boasted no less than eleven claw-bearing limbs.

Antibes multi-limbed sea monster (public domain)

Is it possible that this weird entity, depicted in the Paralipomena (supplement) to the second edition of Conrad Gesner’s Historiae Animalium Liber IV: Piscium et Aquatilium Animantium Natura (1604), was a distorted description of a giant octopus?

GIANT OCTOPUS, OR MYSTERY JELLYFISH?

Finally: 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, which I documented as follows within my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997):

"The diver had been following a shark, and was resting on the edge of a chasm leading down to much deeper depths, still watching the shark, when an immense, dull-brown, shapeless mass rose up out of the chasm, pulsating sluggishly, and flat in general outline with ragged edges.

"Despite appearing devoid of eyes or other instantly-recognizable sensory organs, this malign presence evidently discerned the shark's presence somehow, because it floated upwards until its upper surface made direct contact. The shark instantly gave a convulsive shudder, and was then drawn without resistance into the hideous monster's body. After that, the creature sank back down into the chasm, leaving behind a very frightened diver to ponder what might have happened if that nightmarish, nameless entity had not been attracted towards the shark!"

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.

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 the deadly Chilean hide (© Icarito)

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, though in reality 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).

Exquisite illustration of various jellyfish species revealing their four centrally-sited gastric pouches, depicted by Ernst Haeckel (public domain)

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!

A sinister-looking deepsea octopus in a 19th-Century illustration (public domain)

For further details concerning globsters and Trunko, check out my books Extraordinary Animals Revisited and Mirabilis.

AN INTERVIEW WITH PROF. ROY P. MACKAL ON CRYPTOZOOLOGY - FROM THE SHUKERNATURE ARCHIVES

Prof. Roy P. Mackal (1925-2013) (© Roy P. Mackal)

Back in 1998, I prepared and conducted an interview with esteemed American cryptozoologist Prof. Roy P. Mackal (who was also a well-respected, much-published biochemist at the University of Chicago during his professional scientific career). After writing it up, I forwarded with Roy's permission a copy of the transcript to the British partwork magazine The X Factor, which was devoted to mysteries (including cryptozoological ones) and the unexplained (and was no relation, incidentally, to the later TV pop star talent show of the same title!). Yet although it accepted the interview for publication, The X Factor ended its run before it was able to do so. Sadly, moreover, Roy, who was also a personal friend of mine and had kindly written the splendid foreword to my book In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, passed away in September 2013.

Being interviewed by me had uniquely enabled Roy to provide his own personal insights into some of the many cryptozoological researches that he had conducted down through the years, which make fascinating reading, as well as being highly significant from a historical standpoint. Consequently, as I still retain its original transcript, I am now publishing my never previously seen interview with Roy here, as a ShukerNature world-exclusive.

I also offer it as my personal tribute to someone who was both a greatly-valued friend and a leading, highly-influential figure in the field of cryptozoology who will continue to be so for as long as there are cryptids out there still awaiting discovery. Thank you, Roy, for inspiring me and so many others like me to search for hidden animals, both in the field and in the archives. May we be worthy of you.

MY X-FACTOR INTERVIEW WITH PROF. ROY P. MACKAL:

Now retired from the University of Chicago after a lifetime of internationally-acclaimed research in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology, Professor Roy P. Mackal is also the world's leading field cryptozoologist, and has investigated many classic mystery beasts over the years. He has, for instance, performed a biochemical examination of preserved tissue samples from a supposed gigantic octopus washed ashore on a Florida beach in 1896, and during the 1980s he famously led two expeditions into the People's Republic of the Congo in search of a putative living dinosaur known locally as the mokele-mbembe. He has also been involved with various research projects conducted at Loch Ness, and even experienced a close encounter with a mysterious flippered creature that briefly appeared above the water near his boat. In Namibia he has investigated reports of pterodactyl-like 'flying snakes'; and during the early 1990s he acted as scientific advisor to a Japanese TV crew who filmed a controversial lake monster called the migo in Lake Dakataua, on the island of New Britain, near New Guinea.

Vice-President of the International Society of Cryptozoology and also the author of three well-respected books on cryptozoology, Professor Mackal took time out recently to chat with The X Factor concerning his longstanding involvements, interests, and thoughts on the ever-intriguing subject of mystery beasts.

Q1: As a professional biochemist, what originally attracted you to cryptozoology?

A1: I was always interested in new species of animals, zoology being my second love. My reading of The Lungfish and the Unicorn, Dragons In Amber, and other pioneering cryptozoology-oriented books by self-dubbed 'romantic zoologist' Willy Ley in the 1950s played a major role in fanning my interest. My first serious cryptozoological investigation began in 1965, at Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, during the golden years of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau.

One of Willy Ley's most famous books with cryptozoological content (© Willy Ley/Viking Press)

Q2: Assuming that the mokele-mbembe does exist and is indeed a living dinosaur, why did early Western explorers and other travellers never bring back any physical remains of this very large mystery beast for scientific study?

A2: Although there were efforts by people like the famous animal collector Carl Hagenbeck and others to obtain hard evidence for the mokele-mbembe, the circumstances of the difficult, disease-ridden Congolese swamps produced no results to speak of. The main problem is that the area is so formidable and is so large - approximately 55,000 square miles of unexplored jungle swamp in the Likouala region where the creature is reported - that it takes a great deal of time and effort to mount an expedition. Furthermore, one must remain in the area for long periods of time, which is extremely difficult, in order to obtain any information about these animals, which are apparently quite rare.

Roy's famous book documenting his searches for the Congolese mokele-mbembe, published in 1987 (© Prof. Roy P. Mackal/E.J. Brill)

Q3: Since first spying it in 1994, your opinion has changed concerning the likely identity of the migo, the monster of Lake Dakataua in New Britain. Why is this, and what do you now believe the migo to be?

A3: Our original video recordings of the migo clearly established that there were animals, or animal, at least 50 ft or about 14 m in overall length present in the lake from time to time. Lake Dakataua is a freshwater lake, completely isolated from the sea by only 400-500 ft. It is freshwater without any fish in it, due primarily to the salts spewed out by the active volcano at its edge. Images of the serrated back and the contours of the migo that we obtained on the videos in the Japanese expedition suggested that its zoological identity might involve reptiles, or even primitive whales known as archaeocetes.

During the second expedition a few months later, additional video sequences and observations were made at close range, establishing that the 50 ft creature was in fact three specimens of the saltwater or estuarine crocodile Crocodylus porosus - a female in heat being tracked by two males. One of the males was clasping the female's tail, and the other male was clasping the tail of the first male. Altogether this produced a composite 'creature' possessing what had seemed to be a head, neck, and two humps, and measuring in the order of 50 ft or so in total length.

Q4: Another close encounter with a lake monster featured Nessie, spied by you at Urquhart Bay, in September 1970. Tell us about your sighting, which is among the most notable of all Nessie reports.

A4: My observation at Loch Ness occurred at approximately 4-5 pm in the afternoon, on an absolutely clear, sunny, calm day. The water was as smooth as glass from time to time, but of course occasionally small ripples would appear. My underwater engineer Robert Love and his assistant Jeff Blonder were servicing hydrofoam equipment that we had deployed in the depths of the bay in order to record any unusual animal sounds. I was minding our work boat Fussy Hen, supposedly keeping it in trim. Actually, I was only half-awake, sort of dozing off with boredom, when to my surprise, about 30 ft away, 10 m or so, I noticed the water begin to boil up, as a result of a large mass moving towards the surface.

In a moment, the black back of a creature, which was elongated and convex, broke the surface. The texture appeared like the skin of an elephant - no hair, scales, or anything else notable. The back had a slight ridge-like configuration, but no serrations. The part that showed was of the order of 2-3 m, protruding in length above the water, more or less twisting or rolling from left to right. As it rotated to the right, occasionally a black triangular flipper-like structure broke the surface on the left anterior side of the creature. It was separated from the main body of the creature by probably about 1 ft or so of water. This varied as the animal twisted from left to right and right to left. I estimate that the triangular object at the water line when it protruded maximally was probably 12 in or so, and protruding 10-12 in at maximum height. The object looked very much like a black rubbery flipper, exactly like what was later photographed underwater by Robert Rines. Nothing else ever became visible.

I called Bob and Jeff's attention to the object as we watched with racing pulses for 2-3 minutes, after which the object submerged almost straight down, with only a slight forward motion. Nothing that could be attributed to a head, neck, or any other structure was ever observed.

Roy's classic, extensively-researched book investigating the Loch Ness Monster phenomenon, published in 1976

Q5: Nowadays, anyone with an interest in cryptozoology, however slight, readily refers to themselves as a cryptozoologist. Do you agree with this trend?

A5: If people are doing cryptozoological research, I have no objection to calling them cryptozoologists. If some day cryptozoology becomes a recognised scientific discipline, and scientific training in this area is formally available, then I would consider that perhaps the term should be applied more to those who have actually undergone training and studied the subject and obtained academic, scientific credentials, although I feel that the term 'amateur cryptozoologist' would still be appropriate for others. At the present time, we all are amateurs in a strict sense.

Q6: As a world-acclaimed professional scientist, what types of response have you received from colleagues over the years regarding your cryptozoological interests, and how (if at all) have attitudes towards cryptozoology changed within scientific circles in recent times?

A6: In the 1960s, I experienced a great many raised eyebrows among my colleagues regarding my taking things like Loch Ness seriously. There were many exceptions, however, which were encouraging. In the past 40 years or so, I have experienced a significant change in attitudes towards consideration of cryptozoology as a legitimate science rather than pseudoscience. After all, in the 19th Century, while it was not formally named it was always considered zoology. There are still, of course, plenty of philistines inside and outside of the academic community who take a very negative view towards cryptozoological research.

TWO BOX FEATURES WRITTEN BY ME THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED ALONGSIDE MY INTERVIEW WITH PROF. ROY MACKAL IN THE X FACTOR:

Was Florida's St Augustine globster really a giant octopus?

On 30 November 1896, a massive, highly-decomposed carcase was washed onto a beach near St Augustine, Florida. When its description was first read by esteemed biologist Professor A.E. Verrill of Yale University, he stated that it was probably a colossal octopus, with a tentacular span of up to 200 ft - far greater than any currently accepted by science - and he christened this spectacular new species Octopus giganteus. A little later, however, Verrill changed his mind, claiming that the carcase, nowadays dubbed the Florida or St Augustine globster, was merely rotting whale blubber. Since then, there has been appreciable dispute as to what this really was, so in the 1980s Professor Mackal subjected to amino acid analyses some of its tissue samples (preserved at the Smithsonian Institution), alongside control tissue samples obtained from a number of other animal species, including two octopuses. And the result?

Photograph of Florida's St Augustine globster from 1896

In a scientific paper documenting his study, Mackal revealed: "Comparison with the amino acid composition of known proteins indicates that the O. giganteus tissue is mainly collagen and certainly not 'whale blubber'...Comparative determinations of Cu [copper] and Fe [iron] content of O. giganteus tissues and controls were inconclusive, but consistent with a cephalopod [squid, octopus] identification. These analytical results support the original identification of the tissue and carcass by A.E. Verrill as an exceptionally large cephalopod, probably octopus, not referable to any known species".

In 1995, conversely, a zoological team from Maryland University announced that according to their own recent biochemical and microscopical study of the St Augustine globster's tissues, the collagen's specific composition was mammalian, thus supporting the whale identity. In reality, however, as noted by Florida University cytobiologist Dr Joseph Gennaro, whose histological researches on the globster's tissues back in 1971 had indicated an octopus identity, the preserving fluid in which the tissue samples have been retained for over a century may well have distorted their chemical composition, rendering any conclusive taxonomic identification of the St Augustine globster impossible.

Could flying reptiles unknown to science await discovery in Namibia?

According to traditional native lore, the hilly, desert terrain of Namibia in southwestern Africa is home to a mysterious flying creature, which if real is certainly unknown to science. The Namaqua people of southern Namibia claim that it is a winged snake, and a creature fitting this description has apparently been seen by eyewitnesses of European descent too, as revealed by Professor Mackal in his book Searching For Hidden Animals (1980).

One of the most famous eyewitnesses is Michael Esterhuise, who as a teenager in 1942 encountered a very large snake with a pair of wing-like structures projecting from the sides of its mouth. On a second occasion, a huge serpent-like beast actually launched itself from the top of a rocky ledge and soared down through the air towards Esterhuise, creating a very loud air disturbance as it did so, and hitting the ground with such force that it left its tracks behind, to be later examined by perplexed scientists.

Roy's first cryptozoology book, originally published in 1980; the version illustrated here is the first UK edition, published in 1983

Writing about this bizarre incident in his book, Mackal discounted earlier proposals that the snake had merely been an injured python falling to earth, adding: "In fact, it is hard to attribute such a disturbance even to a large gliding creature, suggesting instead that some kind of wing action must have been involved".

Mackal had also collected accounts of a pterodactyl-like beast supposedly spied in Namibia. So in summer 1988, he and a group of fellow investigators journeyed to an isolated private property owned by German Namibians, where reports had emerged. According to these, the creature was apparently "...capable of sustained flight, thus was not just a glider. In particular, one of the animals was said to fly (mainly glide) at dusk between crevices in two kopjes [hills] separated by about a mile. The animal was described as having a wingspan close to 30 feet, and having no feathers". Despite daily watches, however, the team failed to observe such a creature, and Professor Mackal returned home to America. Conversely, one member of the team who remained there, James Kosi, later claimed to have spied a giant creature, black with white markings, gliding through the air approximately 1000 ft away.

So could such a creature truly exist? Mackal's thoughts on the matter encapsulate the sober scientific attitude that he has shown in relation to all of his cryptozoological investigations:

"In contrast to some who state, 'Today there is no possibility whatsoever of finding a flying reptile or any of its progeny in some lost corner of the world; all such reports can be nothing but hoaxes,' I suggest we keep an open mind".

One day…? (© Dr Karl Shuker)