Sauroids and Reptilians

In the June, 1948 issue of AMAZING STORIES Magazine, pp. 158-190, 'Chief Sequoyah' related the following account, which appeared under the title: 'SPIRIT OF THE SERPENT GOD':

"Somewhere in the mountains of Oregon there is a hidden cave with a small stream flowing from its mouth. Within the cave lies a vast hoard of gold and jewelry surrounded by the crumbling bones of an ancient tribe of Indians. But watching over both, guarding them against theft by white man and hostile Indian alike, hovers the terrible spirit of the great serpent. He has already wreaked death upon intruders...

"My own father told me this story, and his father told him, and for uncounted generations it has been a legend of our tribe which lived along the coastline of Oregon and northern California. My father was a medicine man and he knew the ancient legends well.

"White people today have been taught to regard the serpent as the Devil himself, or at any rate his chief emissary on earth.

"...Now in the east, far east of the mountains in the great plains, there was an Indian chieftain named Blue Eagle who had violated the sacred laws of his tribe, They did not kill Blue Eagle, because the tribe did not believe in the death penalty. Instead they banished him and all his belongings and his family forever from the plains. Westward they went, over the plains, the deserts, the mountains, and ultimately the clan came to the Oregon shore. Here they settled and after hundreds of years they became a great tribe. They prospected and mined gold and made golden ornaments and vessels of shining yellow metal.

"But the curse of the first Chief Blue Eagle's evil deeds came at last to rest upon his children. An epidemic of disease hit the tribe at the height of its strength. Enemy tribes they could fight, and strong wild beasts of the mountains, but they could not fight this sickness. They died like mayflies in the early spring, men and women and children. They fell so fast that there were not enough well men and women to bury the dead. How could their spirits and their precious belongings be committed to the 'care' of the serpent god (which they worshipped) if graves could not be dug for them?

"The medicine man called a last council of all the men in the tribe who could summon strength to attend. 'We are doomed,' he told them. 'The spirits of evil who roam the earth have fixed their eyes upon our spirits and our possessions. We must entrust them to the care of the serpent god.'

"Since they believed thay had no hope in life, they decided that all they could do would be to protect themselves in death. They gathered their riches and precious belongings and their kinfolk and held sacred rites before the mouth of a cave in the mountainside. In the ceremony, the medicine man instructed the serpent to guard over the cave. Then they entered the cave with their belongings, and as each of them died in the cave, the spirit of the dead brave would enter into the serpent so that he would become the stronger to guard it. As a final protection, a landslide was started which closed the cave for hundreds of years.

"A special curse was placed against any white man who might find the cave, and the serpent god who guarded it was enjoined to protect it especially against men of white skin. If a white man were to enter the cave, he must die by the strength of the great serpent. 'No other man but a Red Man, and one with the heart of the Red Man, can use the contents of the secret cave, and then only for the benefit of the Red Man'--so ran the injunction of the serpent god....

"This was the legend. Now what has happened to the cave and its contents?

"I have heard many stories of people finding the cave and never having been seen since (Note: whether these people were gold-hungry or whether they were innocent curiosity seekers, didn't seem to matter, if they were white and they entered the cave the chances were they never came out - Branton). I have tried to trace many of these stories down to find out what truth there may be to them and to the curse of the great serpent. I have not been able to verify any of these stories--except one.

"In the early days of the gold rush, three prospectors started north from California to explore the mountains of Southern Oregon. They came in with pack mules and mining equipment, provisioned for a long stay. They panned numerous streams on their way, searching for the precious yellow color of gold. They found it one day in a small creek running around the base of a mountain. Up stream and down stream they panned, searching for concentrations of the yellow stuff, but they found very little except at the mouth of a tiny stream which came into the creek out of a cave in the mountain.

"These men were Peter Jackson, an old-time mountain man; Mike Burns, who spoke in a Scottish burr so rough it had knobs on it, and Jed O'Hara, part Spanish, part Irish, and a host of other mixtures.

Jackson was a cold, hard character, experienced in the wilderness and not caring a damn for Indian or grizzly bear. Burns was easy-going but stubborn once he got on the trail of something. O'Hara apparently was a carefree, hard-working man when the mood was on him, a great whiskey drinker if there was any whiskey to be had, and undoubtedly the most emotional of the trio. He was the only one who could rightly be held to be a superstitious man, and as it turned out this characteristic was to save his life--what was left of it, that is.

"Every evidence seemed to point to the fact that the tiny stream issuing from the cave mouth was the source of the color. Considering that fact, it is an odd thing that the three prospectors did not immediately begin to explore the cave. Instead they gave the larger creek a thorough going over, and even explored streams in neighboring valleys from their main camp near the cave. In view of what happened later, it is probable that O'Hara dissuaded his two companions from exploring the cave to any depth until it became evident that if they were to find any gold at all it would have to be within the cave.

"As they sat around the campfire at dusk, they could see the mouth of the cave beckoning to them with its promise of gold, and yet at the same time coldly warning them to stay away. As darkness fell it might have looked like the black pit of hell itself to the superstitious Jed O'Hara, and we can imagine him staring at it until it became indistinguishable against the black cloak of night. Exactly why he was so reluctant to enter the cave we cannot say. It may have been the innate superstitiousness of his nature or it may have been that with his part Mexican-Spanish origins he understood enough of the Indian lingo to have heard some legend of the lost tribe of Chief Blue Eagle and of their guardian great serpent. But the decision had been made. They would explore the cave.

"It may have been after troubled dreams that the trio awoke to the greatest day of their lives. They ate their broiled venison for breakfast in silence and after pipes they prepared pine torches and were ready for the trip. At the mouth of the cave they built a large fire, hoping to see it glimmering as a guide from the dark interior. The entrance was very narrow at its lower level, and nearly blocked by a huge boulder around which the stream had eroded a channel just wide enough for them to squeeze by one at a time.

"The passage continued narrow for several hundred feet. Jackson, the largest of the three, was in the lead, with Burns following close behind and O'Hara brought up a somewhat reluctant rear. They had proceeded about 500 yards when they heard a loud hissing sound. They halted abruptly. Jackson started to say something when he felt soft wings brush past him and Burns chimed in with the reassuring words that it was just a bat. They moved ahead, always more slowly, held back by a growing dread of the unknown. It is hard to see ahead very far with the aid of a pine torch, even when it is held high above the head. The holder is illuminated far better than anything he tries to illuminate; he is, in short, a target.

"Realizing this in the stygian blackness of the high-vaulted cavern, the three continued their ever more-reluctant advance. And then Jackson screamed in mortal fear. Almost instantly Burns too began to scream hoarsely. In the light of their falling torches, O'Hara saw that the two men ahead had turned to run. He also saw what they were fleeing--a huge coiled serpent with eyes glowing red in the reflected torch light, jaws agape. The fearful vision seemed to freeze O'Hara's brain with terror but his feet grew wings.

"One evening, perhaps three months later, the prospectors in a mining camp were on their last round of drinks when a fantastic creature stumbled into the saloon. He appearance was enough to make even these rugged miners halt the glass on its way to their lips. His matted filthy beard was long, his eyes sunken, his cheeks the cheeks of a starving man. He was nearly naked, his clothes ripped off or worn off by the clawing branches and unfriendly rocks of Southern Oregon's mountains. This was what was left of Jed O'Hara.

"It was possible to nurse his body back into a semblance of health, his mind never. When he was able to force words where only gibberish had come, and eventually to link words into rare sentences, there gradually emerged, piece by piece over the months, a story so obviously fantastic that the prospectors shook their heads and said that Jed O'Hara would never be the same again.

"As for his story, prospectors knew better than to believe a madman's babblings about a giant snake as large around as a hogshead and as long as a pack rope. But on the other hand, there might be something to his confused tale (prospectors being what they are) about an ancient Indian treasure in a cave. Once several of them organized an expedition around poor old Jed and tried to find his cave. They had no luck with it.

"People would have forgotten the story of Jed O'Hara and his lost partners and his snake if two Indian hunters hadn't stumbled onto an old camp in the mountains 40 years later. There were some rusty guns, a couple of old cast iron pots, and the rotted remains of other paraphernalia which suggested their owners had left in a hurry. And nearby there was a cave, with a tiny stream emerging from its mouth. The Indians decided to explore the cave. To their horror they found the bones of two men a short way inside. They did not go further.

"When they told their story on the outside, a search party was formed to investigate the mystery. The Indians guided the party to the cave and its grisly remains. The remains of the hunting knives, a belt buckle and a few coins indicated that (they) were the bones of white men. But what were they doing here, and what had killed them?

A rock fall had blocked off the cave so it would be hard to penetrate it much beyond the site where the two skeletons lay. But it did not seem in any way responsible for their deaths. A further mystery appeared when the bones were carried out of the cave. The ribs and upper spinal columns seemed literally pulverized by some mighty crushing force, as a vise. But no satisfactory answer was ever found by the white men. The bones were buried near the old camp site and for many years the Indians avoided the place.

"Now the cave is lost again, perhaps covered by the heavy undergrowth in the hidden mountains, perhaps by a landslide. The Indian hunters who discovered it have long since gone to the happy hunting ground... I hope some day to rediscover it an put its riches to the use of my people."

John A. Keel, in his book 'THE EIGHTH TOWER' (pp. 97,119), in keeping with his in depth study of 'monstrology' or in more scientific terms 'cryptozoology', describes some of the 'monster' accounts he has come across describing hominoid beasts which reeked of sulfurous fumes:

"...(An) important characteristics of our monsters is that they nearly always appear close to water--lakes, streams, reservoirs, swamps. This has stimulated some discussion that the creatures might be amphibians who actually live at the bottom of bodies of water and only rarely venture onto land. If this were actually the case, they shouldn't be so desperately in need of a bath. They might be scented with the odor of stagnant water. But hydrogen sulfide?

"...Eager would-be UFO photographers the world over have been puzzled when their expensive cameras failed to function at the critical moment, returning to normal as soon as the UFO had soared out of view. Holiday (a researcher referred to earlier in his text - Branton) cites a number of instances in which this has occurred at Loch Ness. In some cases, the cameras seemed to work, but the developed film came out completely blank. This has also happened to innumerable UFO photographers (and) ghost hunters."

F. W. Holiday, in his book 'THE DRAGON AND THE DISK' (W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. New York, N.Y. 1973) relates some unusual facts concerning the relationship between serpent or 'dragon' legends and the modern 'UFO' phenomena:

"...To introduce further unknowns when you have not satisfactorily dealt with the first one is not an ideal way of solving equations. However, the ancients leave us no option. For they considered the dragon in relation to an even more remarkable set of phenomena -- phenomena that have produced a greater amount of controversy within the last two decades than any other mystery known to the modern world. This is the riddle of the Flying Disk or U.F.O.

"Thanks to an excellent analysis of French and Spanish cave- art by Aime Michel in 1969, we can now be quite certain that people of the Magdalenian culture... observed the same or very similar U.F.O. phenomena to those described by recent witnesses. We can be confident about this because the Magdalenians were without equal as artists in the world of prehistory as is proved by their superb coloured murals. When they sketched a Flying Disc, therefore - and hundreds are depicted in cave art - it seems obvious that they actually observed such objects just as they observed the horses depicted at Lascaux and the mammoths at Rouffignac. Discs are particularly plentiful in one of the most famous caves of the period - Altamira. These people painted not only bison, bears and other wildlife, but also 'flying saucers'.

In chapter thirteen, 'THE SERPENT PEOPLE', Holiday begins with a quote from a poem by the black sorcerer Aleister Crowley:

"'...It seemed to all of them as though the air grew thick and greasy; that of that slime were bred innumerable creeping things, monsters misshapen, abortions of dead paths of evolution, creatures which had not been found fit to live upon the earth and so had been cast off by her as excrement.'

Crowley however did not hide the fact that he worshipped such 'excrement', as can be seen by his own degenerate existence as a sorcerer.

Holiday continues:

"Satanism - that is to say the religion of the dragon...seems to have been contemporaneous in BABYLON and Bronze Age Britain. In both countries it was probably practiced by minority groups and became official only in times of decadence.

"When Cryus occupied Ur...a form of dragon-worship seems to have been in vogue. The priests of this cult escaped the Persians by fleeing north with their PONTIFF into the mountains of Asia Minor. They finally came to rest at a place called Pergamos in Lydia (western Turkey) and there set up a religious centre which became known as 'Satan's seat'. St. John said: 'And to the angel of the church of Pergamos, write: These things saith he [God] which hath the sharp sword with two edges [judgement and mercy]: I know they works, and where thou dwellest, EVEN where Satan's seat it...'

"The Romans also knew about Satan's seat AND ANNEXED IT INTO THEIR EMPIRE IN 133 B.C. after the death of Attalus III, the last of the Pergamite kings. About this period A PLAGUE BROKE OUT IN ROME and prayers were offered to the Roman 'gods' in vain. It was decided, therefore, to appeal to Satan at Pergamos.

"The symbol of the cult was A SERPENT and a special ship was sent to Lydia TO TRANSPORT THE GOD TO ROME. There it was installed as a deity with great pomp. The disease had probably run its course and the resulting improvement in public health was attributed to Satan. The new religion was so popular that snakes of inoffensive species were allowed to glide around at parties -- at least so Seneca says. In HISTORIA AUGUSTA they are called DRACUNCULI or little dragons.

"The Aesculapian Serpent - as the 'god' was called - is shown on a carving at Pompeii and is unlike anything known to herpetologists. It had vertical humps and snail-like horns, exactly like the monsters of Scotland and Ireland. A bronze Urarian cauldron in Rome carries the erect head and neck of the creature modelled in the round. It is hideous. it has a shovel- like mouth, bulging eyes and tentacles or sensory-organs hanging on each side of the face.

"No-one, of course, thought that snakes were dragons. The malignant Great Serpent of Babylonia was TYPHON or Teitan, Satan, the author of wickedness...

"Politicians, however, never look a gift-horse in the mouth as long as it produces results. After giving the Roman people carnage in the guise of circus entertainment, there was no reason for the EMPERORS to shrink from a little devil-worship. Even the national flag was given the treatment. Ammianus Marcellinus describes the standard 'PURPUREUM SIGNUM DRACONIS'. And when Julius Caesar appeared in full regalia as the PONTIFEX MAXIMUS he was dressed in reddish-purple robes the same as the Pergamite dragon-priests. The reader can trace the rest of the story in Gibbon's 'RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE'.

"DRAGON-WORSHIP PERSISTED LONG AFTER CHRISTIANITY (and also 'Catholicism?' - Branton) HAD BEEN PROCLAIMED. Tertullian complained: 'These heretics magnify the serpent to such a degree as to prefer him even to Christ himself; for he, they say, gave us the first knowledge of good and evil.'

"[Some of] the Babylonians strongly believed that the monsters were evil. R. C. Thompson, in 'THE DEVILS AND EVIL SPIRITS OF BABYLONIA', gives an 'incantation' that was used against the creatures:

"'...Seven are they, seven are they. In the Ocean Deep, seven are they. They are reared in the home of the Ocean Deep. Neither male nor female are they. They are as the roaming wildbeast. No wife have they, no son do they beget. They know neither mercy nor pity. They harken not unto prayers and supplications. They are as the horses reared on the hills. The Evil Ones of EA, throne-bearers of the gods are they. They stand in the highway to befoul the path. Evil are they, evil are they. By Heaven be ye exorcised!'"

Holiday continues: "Various Loch Ness witnesses have said that the head of a monster looks like the head of a goat... It is no surprise, therefore, to find that the Babylonians used the expression 'antelope of the deep' for the creatures. The exiled Jews at Ur called them chimera or goat-spirits. There are goat- spirits illustrated on some ancient British coins.

"...Dragon-worship had various appeals. The believer was bound by no rigid moral code. But obviously the Pergamites had some sort of a code otherwise their community would hardly have survived for about 400 years. Another appeal was that Satan, on EARTH, was said to be more powerful than God.

In fact a passage in the Bible calls him 'the god of THIS world' as distinct from the God of HEAVEN (According to Hebrew scripture the Evil One gained possession of this world when the Evadamic descendants 'sold out' the planet to it. The 'New Testament', especially in REVELATION, states that the 'title deed' to the earth was 'bought back' by Jesus the Messiah or Christ who, even though he was the ruler of countless billions of worlds nevertheless felt that this small world, the cradle of life, was worth the price - Branton). In view of some of the happenings on the planet, this is still a pretty good argument.

"Our knowledge of Satanism in Bronze Age Britain is based almost entirely on archaeological remains. British dragon- worshippers used to build gigantic models of their deity out of earth and stones. A few examples still survive in Scotland overlooking waters where the monsters existed.

"There is a huge dragon-simulation on the banks of the Clyde and another at Ach-na-Goul near Inverary. In 1969 I visited the dragon-simulation in Glen Feochan near Oban. The hundred yard long model is at the lower end of Loch Neil. John S. Phene, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., described it to the British Association in Edinburgh as being 'in the form of a serpent or saurian'. The head seems to be represented by a cairn.

"The most dramatic of the dragon models, however, is on the ridge of Ben Cruachan above the Pass of Brander. It overlooks Lock Awe (Note: The popular encyclopedia of mythology, 'THE MYTHOLOGY OF ALL RACES', contains a volume titled 'CELTIC MYTHOLOGY' which refers to a cavern called 'Cruachan' in Great Britain from which strange and frightening beasts were said to emerge over the centuries, creatures which would cause death a havoc to the residents of the countryside. Although it may be nothing more than a 'legend' could Cruachan cavern be connected to the 'Cruachan Ridge' just mentioned? - Branton). The Great Beast of Loch Awe (BEATHACH MOR LOCH ODHA) was celebrated in Celtic folklore.

"...Oddly, no dragon models seem to have been found in Ireland. it is possible that they were levelled by early Christians. 'St. Patrick may have struck a more subtle and fundamental blow at paganism than is generally realized when be banished the serpents from Ireland,' comments Dr. Anne Ross. With this I entirely agree.

"Place-names suggest a relationship with the old dragon cult. 'I went round the whole of Ireland until I found the girl at Loch Bel Dragon at CROTTA CLIACH,' says an unknown eighth- century author. The modern name for this lake in the Galtee Mountains is Loch Curra. The word 'Bel' is a reference to the Babylonian god Bel-Marduk. The Scots seem to have changed it to 'Bill', the name they used for a bull. As recently as 200 years ago it was customary to sacrifice a bull on 25 August, on the isle of Inishmaree, to the dragons in Lough Maree. So the idea must have been well-rooted.

"How and when the religion of the dragon...crossed to America is not known. Quite the best dragon-simulation is the earthwork at Peebles, Ohio. The ground-plan of this structure with its thin neck, bulky frontal portion and coiling eel-like tail is a good representation of the phenomena that appear in lochs. So it looks as if someone, somewhere, had a really gook look at a specimen.

"The centre of activity of the culture seems to have been at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It was in this area that Marquette, a missionary-explorer, found petroglyphs of dragons on a bluff in 1675. He appears to have named the bluff 'Piasa Rock' or 'Piast Rock' (Rock of the Pest). The dragons, painted in red, black and green, were the objects of worship by the Indians. The bluff was near the present town of Alton. Unfortunately, the face of the rock was quarried away in 1846-47 and the only trace of the dragons are the illustrations in a rather rare German book.

"These Illinois dragons had slightly Chinese features. You would have to march a long way into the hinterland of art forms to find a more unlikely combination than a pair of Chinese dragons painted by Amerinds which were given the Latin name 'Piast' by a French priest.

"However, it doesn't seem to be very likely that the Amerinds, as a whole, were much given to dragon-worship. Rather the reverse...

"Monsters and U.F.O's are no longer observed solely in the isolation of lonely communities. People are becoming aware. "...The American Indian doesn't need a Condon Report to tell

him about U.F.O.s. He needs only to look at the history of his people.

"The question arises: does dragon-worship still go on?

"Britain's best-known Satanist was the late Aleister Crowley. At the end of the last century he bought Boleskine House on Loch Ness and started signing his letter 'The Great Beast'. This was years before the WORLD heard about Loch Ness monsters. Crowley than came into contact with the ideas of Dr. John Dee.

"Dee lived in Wales during the sixteenth century. He was an occultist (and) Queen Elizabeth I consulted him over all her major decisions.

"...In spite of everything, the universe is one and hydrogen atoms dance on Mars and Venus just as they dance on earth. Although it now seems that Satan and his dragons really do exist, we are already beginning to perceive dimly that they are actually components of a much greater reality extending through unthinkable gulfs of time and space.

"...dragon phenomena, although apparently objective in nature, can be demonstrated only to the extent that U.F.O. phenomena can be demonstrated. That is to say, both can be occasionally photographed at a distance, both yield returns using sonar and radar respectively, yet neither leave behind any material analysis (Some would argue with that however, and state that in MOST cases when such hard 'evidence' surfaces it is immediately apprehended by officials and given the highest secrecy classification - Branton).

The U.F.O., as we have seen, can actually disappear while under observation in the manner of an apparition. Whether dragons can do so also must remain a possibility until we know more about the real nature of these strange happenings."

Drawing some links between traditional supernatural or 'paranormal' phenomena, Mr. Holiday relates the following experience:

"On 7 October 1965, Annabelle Randall was driving her fiance, John Plowman, back to his home near Warminster (England). At 11:30 p.m. they approached a railway bridge near Heytesbury, Wiltshire, where several FATAL ACCIDENTS have occurred.

"As the car approached the bridge they saw a sprawled [creature] lying with its legs and feet on the road. Miss Randall managed to avoid them and stopped. It was found that the figure had vanished. A search of the road, the bridge and the surrounding area failed to reveal any trace.

"About 12:25 a.m. the girl set off alone on the return journey. Near the same bridge she saw a bright orange glow against an embankment. She described it as a 'large orange ball' which suddenly shot across the road and took off into the sky.

"Simultaneously, she became aware of a second round object except thit this one was dark and stationary. And walking along the road towards her came two figures wearing tight-fitting dark clothes and some sort of headgear. From the thighs downwards they glistened as if wet. The car almost ran them down as the now frightened driver kept going at top speed till she reached town.

"...From all this there is a case to be argued that monsters and U.F.O.s are in some way linked. Abnormal chains of causation tending to frustrate inquiry into the nature of the phenomena have been reported in both cases. John A. Keel, an American journalist who has been delving into the mystery for over thirty years, talks about a 'conspiracy'.

He warned me: 'Proceed with great caution in your Loch Ness work. We are caught up in a series of games which must be played by "their" rules. Anyone who tries to invent his own rules, or breaks the basic pattern, soon loses his mind or even his life.' (This might apply in many instances, except of course in the case of those who are working for and 'on the side' of someone much 'greater' than the draconian forces apparently working behind much of the 'UFO' and 'creature' events - Branton). Those who think that this is dramatic and absurd may care to remember the words of St. John:

"'And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by THE MEANS of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the BEAST.'

"'The beast' that performed these miracles was what the Jews called 'The Shining One', 'The Great Serpent' and 'Satan'. If this is the underlying truth of the phenomena then Keel's warning is by no means too strong."

In 'POPULAR SCIENCE', March 1990 issue, p. 24, we read of an apparently quite intelligent, predatory lizard which constantly walked upright on two legs in a remarkable human-like manner, counter balanced by a tail. This lizard, in fact, may have been the original ancestor of all the reptilian species throughout the world (and beyond?). If left to it's 'natural' course (of not so much 'evolution' as 'mutation') over the years, according to some paleontologists, a race of creatures such as described below might have through natural selection become more intelligent and 'hominoid' in nature, and as its brain and physical form developed, and it's limbs became stronger through 'survival of the fittest', the 'tails' of such a predatory race may have become atrophied.

Anyway, this is what some scientists have theorized. But such creatures are long extinct, according to 'official' scientific knowledge. Because of this, they say, we need not worry about being threatened by such a race which, if they existed today, might be a formidable challenge to man's dominion of the planet. But 'what if' such a race did not become extinct for reasons we still have yet to answer, but instead 'disappeared' from the 'face' of the earth to 'somewhere else'. It's a scary thought, to say the least. According to 'POPULAR SCIENCE':

"The oldest known dinosaur, HERRERASAURUS... (was) a flyweight when compared with some of its ponderous descendants. HERRERASAURUS weighed perhaps 300 pounds and stretched a mere six to eight feet long. It had enormous claws and small forelimbs, showing that it spent much time ambling on two legs. It also has a peculiar, double-hinged jaw...that allowed it to clamp down on wriggling prey. And its teeth were finely serrated. These characteristics...clearly mark HERRERASAURUS as an active flesh eater.

"The site of the fossil find (of remains of the saurian - Branton), the Ischigualasto Formation in northwestern Argentina, is the only area in the world where there are no gaps in the fossil record across the time zone being investigated."

In reference to the discoveries made by researcher Paul Serano, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, who with colleague Alfredo Monetta discovered some remains of the bi-ped sauroid lizard near San Juan, Argentina, the article states:

"Serano says that the very first dinosaur should have lived at the time of the rock layer containing HERRERASAURUS, but that climate and geological factors combined to keep any fossils from bring preserved there.

"'We'll have to concentrate above and below that zone,' says Serano, 'Fortunately, those layers are very good. It's likely we'll be able to find more interesting fossils there.'

"The paleontologist won the $500,000 Packard Foundation Award last October, which he says will enable him to continue on the track of dinosaurs."

In 1948, the SATURDAY EVENING POST published an article titled 'THERE COULD BE DINOSAURS.' Three men, the Belgian Bernard Heuvelmans, the Russian Boris Porchnev, and the American Ivan T. Sanderson, the article stated, had been involved in developing a strange science--cryptozoology--the search for animals whose existence 'established zoology' does not wish to acknowledge. At the time the article appeared it created something of a scandal. Sanderson, a notable zoologist, in later years retracted non of his assertions. The article states:

"...A well-known South African big-game hunter, delighting in the name of Mr. F. Gobler, returned from a trip to Angola and announced to the Capetown newspaper, the CAPE ARGUS, that there was an animal of large dimensions, the description of which could only fit a dinosaur, dwelling in Dilolo Swamps, and well known to the natives as CHIPEKWE. He stated: 'Its weight would be about four tons AND IT ATTACKS rhino, hippo and elephants. Hunters have heard a CHIPEKWE--at night--DEVOURING A DEAD RHINO, CRUSHING THE BONES AND TEARING OUT HUGE LUMPS OF MEAT. IT HAS THE HEAD AND TAIL OF A LIZARD. A German scientist has photographed it. I went to the swamp to search for it, but the natives told me it was extremely rare, and I could not locate the monster. Nevertheless I am convinced the CHIPEKWE does exist. Here is the photograph."

This article produced a terrific outburst in the editorial and correspondence columns of the paper, both scientific and sporting, and all with much logical knowledge, agreed that it might exist. The fact that the descendants of the dinosaurs exist is not disputed, since alligators and crocodiles are known to be in this category. The question is, did the 'larger' reptiles survive or did they die-off when the enormous food supplies which they required disappeared? What about the smaller reptiles, those bi-pedal predators about human size or slightly larger which walked on two legs? Did they die out with their more massive counterparts for lack of 'food' as well? In 1920 a certain 'Monsieur Lepage' brought out of the Congo an account of an alleged creature which is believed to exist there. Unlike the reptilian beast which tribesman swore roamed the swamps of Angola, the Congo reptile described by Lepage seemed to be a plant-eater, through deadly nevertheless.

Lepage returned from his hunting trip and announced that he had come upon an extraordinary animal of great size in a swamp. It had CHARGED him, making a snorting noise, and he had fired wildly but, seeing that the monster did not halt, he beat a hasty retreat. When the beast abandoned the chase Lepage turned and examined it through a pair of binoculars for a considerable period of time. He stated that the creature was eight meters, or about twenty-six feet, long, had a long pointed snout, a short horn above the nostrils and a scaly hump on its shoulders. The forefeet appeared to be solid, like those of a horse, but the hindfeet were separated into digits.

Aside from this, a leader of a German expedition to the Cameroons in 1930 made a very interesting report which has never been published in full, although it has been quoted by several writers. In widely separated areas, the expedition leader collected descriptions of an alleged beast or beasts which went by the name MOKELE-MBEMBE, from experienced native guides who could not possibly have known each other.

His description is as follows: "The animal is said to be of a brownish-gray color with a smooth skin, its size approximating that of an elephant; at least that of a hippopotamus. It is said to have a long and very flexible neck and only one tooth but a very long one; SOME SAY IT IS A HORN. A few spoke about a long muscular tail like that of an alligator.

"Canoes coming near it are said to be doomed; the animal is said to attack the vessels at once and to kill the crews, but without eating the bodies. The creature is said to live IN CAVES that have been washed out by the river in the clay of its shores at sharp bends. It is said to climb the shore even in daytime in search of food; its diet is said to be entirely vegetable. This feature disagrees with a possible explanation as a myth.

The preferred plant was shown to me; it is a kind of liana with white blossoms, with a milky sap and applelike fruits. At the Ssombo River I was shown a path said to have been made by the animal in order to get at its food. The path was fresh and there were plants of the described type near by. But since there were too many tracks of elephants, hippos, and other large mammals, it was impossible to make out a particular spoor with any amount of certainty."

The now famous report of the late King Lewanika, of the Barotse tribe, seems to confirm the above description. This king, who took great interest in the fauna of his country, constantly heard of a large reptile that lived in the large swampy regions. He passed this information on to white men, but since few if any of them believed it, he gave strict orders that the next time any of his people saw the creature they were to immediately tell him.

After some time three men did report a sighting, stating that they had come across the beast at the edge of a marsh, that it had a long neck and a small, snakelike head and that it had retreated into the swamp on its belly. King Lewanika immediately visited the spot and states in his official minutes that it hed left a track in the reeds 'as large as a full-sized wagon would make were its wheels removed.'

Other evidence comes from widely diversified sources. For instance an experienced white hunter named Stephens, who was also in charge of a long section of the telegraph line which runs along the banks of the Upper Nile, has given a great deal of information about a large, swamp-dwelling reptile known to several tribes as the LAU.

The natives described the beast to Stephens in great detail and more than one of them affirmed that they had been present at the killing of a LAU. They variously described it as being between forty and a hundred feet long, but concurred in stating that the body was as big as a donkey, that it was dark yellow in color and that it had a vicious, snake-like head, with large tentacles or wiry hairs with which it reached out to seize its prey. Later a Belgian administrator from the Congo asserted that he had seen a LAU several times in a swamp and had shot at it. These reports seem to come from all over Africa, and not be limited to a single area. There are vast areas of Africa which, no doubt, have never seen the foot of man.

One of the most convincing of the native accounts, however, emerged from Northern Rhodesia. The report seemed to describe a creature which was more akin to the CHIPEKWE, the flesh eating saurian which has been reported elsewhere. An Englishman who spent eighteen years on Lake Bengweulu in that country has given an account of the slaying of one of the beasts, as it was described by a local chief, who heard the account from his grandfather.

Apparently the tribesmen had killed the creature with the hippo spears. It had a smooth, hairless, dark body and the head was adorned with a single ivory horn. The story was firmly rooted in the local tradition, and the Englishman in question believed in the existence of the creature, for he reports that a retired local administrator had heard some very large animal splashing in a lake at nighttime and had the next morning examined large unknown spoors or tracks on the bank.

Some years ago during the excavation of the Ishtar Gate in ancient Babylon by the German professor Robert Koldewey, the scientist and his associates brought to light a number of startlingly realistic bas-reliefs of a dragonlike creature with curiously mixed features.

It had a body covered with scales, a long tail and neck, the hind feet of a 'bird' although many of the early saurians are known to have had three-pronged feet like 'birds', the forefeet of a 'lion' and a strange reptilian head sporting a single straight, upright horn like that of a rhinoceros, wrinkles under its neck, a crest like a modern iguana lizard, and a very pronounced, serpentine tongue. Could the real or imaginary existence of such a creature have given rise to legends of 'horned dragons'? At first this creature was classed along with the winged, human-headed bulls and other grotesque monsters from Babylonian mythology, but continued research gradually forced professor Koldewey to quite a different conclusion.

The creature had the name of the SIRRUSH and the priests were said to have held it in a dark cavern in the temple. It was depicted on the walls of the Ishtar Gate in great numbers and in association with a large, ox-like animal which is now known to have been the extinct aurochs and very definitely a real animal.

When analyzed, except for some considerable Babylonian artistic license, the strangely 'mixtured' characteristics of the SIRRUSH appeared to be much less incredible than had at first been supposed, and in spite of his solid Teutonic background, Professor Koldewey became more and more convinced that it was not a representation of a mythical creature but an attempt to depict a real animal, a beast which had actually been kept alive in Babylon in very early days by the priests.

As one researcher put it, paraphrasing the Professors own findings, "...After much searching in the depths of his cautious scientific soul, he even made so bold as to state in print that this animal was one of the plant-eating, bird-footed dinosaurs, many types of which had by that time been reconstructed from fossil remains. He further pointed out that such remains were not to be found anywhere in or near Mesopotamia and that the sirrush could not be a Babylonian attempt to reconstruct the animal from fossils. Its characters as shown in Babylonian art from the earliest times had not changed, and displayed great detail in scales, horns, wrinkles, the crest and the serpentine tongue, which, taken together could not all have been just thought up after viewing a fossilized skeleton."

source:
http://area51.upsu.plym.ac.uk/~moosie/ufo/txt/types/125.htm

Archive date: 07-30-01
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