by Daniel Cohen
Fawcett said that later he heard of even larger anacondas.
When Fawcett got back to London a lot of people called him a liar because of his 62-foot snake story: But if he was a liar, he wasn't the only one.
The Belgian naturalist, Bernard Heuvelmans, has a long-time interest in strange, unusual, and unknown animals. He met a Frenchman named Serge Bonacase, who had been in Brazil in 1947. Bonacase told the naturalist an astonishing story.
He said he was with a group of Frenchmen and Brazilians that spotted an anaconda asleep in the grass. They got about twenty yards away from it and fired their rifles at it several times. Only after they killed it did they realize how enormous it was. "When we walked along the whole length of its body it seemed as if it would never end."
What Bonacase found most impressive was the thing's head. To demonstrate, the size of the head, Bonacase stretched out his arms in front of himself, with his hands together. This formed a triangle with two-foot sides and an 18-inch base.
Bonacase's group didn't have anything to measure the snake with except a piece of string about three feet long. Using it, they estimated that the creature was between 72 and 75 feet in length.
None of the group had a camera. There was no possibility of carrying back a snake of that size and weight. But why didn't they bring back its skin, or head? Bonacase said no one thought it would be worth the trouble. They didn't think there was anything that unusual about the creature.
"The Brazilian officials who had spent much of their lives in this country did not seem to be particularly surprised. As for me, I had heard so many tales of giant snakes that I supposed the whole of the Amazon was crawling with monsters of this size."
Try to imagine a snake 75 or 80 feet long. That is almost four times as long as the longest snake you have ever seen, or have ever seen a picture of. The longest snake kept in a zoo was a mere 22 feet. A 75- or 80-foot anaconda is a real monster.
And there is more. There are rumors of another, even larger snake in South America. It is supposed to be some sort of water snake that lives in the Amazon River and its tributaries. Stories make the thing sound so big that it has been called an inland sea serpent.
The giant andaconda of South America
A priest, Father Victor Heinz, reported seeing this monster twice. The first time was on May 22, 1922. He was riding in a canoe
down the Amazon when he saw a giant water snake drifting quietly and gently downstream. "I reckoned that its body was as thick as an oil-drum and its visible length was some 80 feet."
Father Heinz' next meeting with the monster came in 1929. He was on the river at night. Suddenly, his crew became very frightened. They began to row madly toward shore.
"What is it?" Father Heinz cried.
"There is a big animal," they muttered, very excited.
At the same moment he heard the water move. It sounded as if a steamboat was passing. Then he saw two bluish-green lights several feet above the water. He thought they were lights on a riverboat. The two lights, however, came from the monster's eyes which glowed in the dark. The monster simply avoided Father Heinz' canoe and swam over to the other side of the river.
There have been many stories about giant snakes attacking people and other animals.
Glowing eyes figure in many accounts of this giant water snake. On July 6, 1930, a Portuguese merchant named Reymondo Zima was going down the river at night in his motorboat. He was looking for a house on the right bank. He saw a light near the shore. Thinking it was the house, he steered toward it. Then he switched on his own searchlight. Suddenly, the light began charging his boat at a high speed. It turned out to be a giant water snake, which had only one glowing eye. Zima assumed that the animal had somehow lost the other eye. He thought the creature had mistaken his searchlight for the eye of a fellow snake. The creature nearly overturned Zima's little boat, but he managed to make it safely to shore.
Another priest, Father Protesius Frickel, said he saw one of the monsters lying in the water near the bank. He got within about a dozen steps of the beast, but it did not move. "It's eyes," he wrote, "were as large as plates."
In addition to the many reports of giant water snake sightings, there are also supposed to have been two photographs. The first was taken in 1933. The group that took the photo said that they had killed the monster with a machine gun. Before it died, however, it lifted its head 30 feet in the air. When it fell it crushed bushes and trees. Four men were unable to lift the dead creature's head.
The second photograph was taken in 1948. This monster was said to have crawled ashore and tried to hide in an old fort. But it was killed, though it took 500 machine gun bullets to do the job. The dead snake was measured at 115 feet.
If the man in this drawing is six foot tall, imagine the length of the giant snake.
Where are these astonishing photographs? They were supposed to have been published in a newspaper in Rio de Janeiro. But no one seems to know which paper or where the original photos are.
Unless these photographs are found, or a skull, a skin, or a whole snake turns up, the giant water snake of the Amazon will just have to remain another of the world's elusive monsters.
CHAPTER 10
THE TAZELWORM
As far as monsters go, the tazelworm really isn't too much. It is only supposed to be about two or three feet long. There are stories that the bite of the tazelworm is highly poisonous. It has been said that the creature is so poisonous that even its breath can kill you. According to legend, the tazelworm is very mean, and will attack anything that moves.
But even people who believe in the tazelworm do not believe all of these stories.
The most responsible beliefs about the tazelworm are this: It is a largish lizard, with two or four short legs. It may have a poisonous bite, but this is not absolutely certain. Far from being aggressive, the beast is very shy, though, like other animals, it will attack if cornered.
In fact, it is its very shyness that makes the tazelworm so interesting and, in a way, makes it a monster. For the tazelworm, if it exists at all, is a fairly large creature that has remained undetected by scientists, right in the middle of Europe. It would be the largest lizard in Europe, and one of the largest in the whole world.
If the tazelworm exists, it would be proof that large and unusual-looking animals can remain undetected in the modern world. If the tazelworm exists, it would strengthen the case for the existence of other monsters. After all, if the tazelworm could escape detection, so could other animals.
But does the tazelworm exist? That is the problem. As far as monsters go, the evidence for the tazelworm is very good.
Drawing of the tazelworm from a Bavarian hunting manual of 1836.
The creature is supposed to live in the valleys of the Swiss, Bavarian, and Austrian alps. It is known by many different names. "Tazelworm" is the most common. The name means "worm with feet." It has also been called a tunnel worm, a jumping worm, or a mountain stump. Of course, it is not a worm at all, but some sort of lizard.
Stories about the tazelworm are so common that it was included in an 1861 book on the animals of the Alps. The author said the creature was thick, from three to six feet long, had two short legs, and generally appeared before storms after a long dry spell.
The author added, "Many honest and respectable people swear that they have seen it with their own eyes." The author also said that in 1828 a Swiss peasant found a dead tazelworm. The creature's skeleton was sent to the University at Heidelberg, in Germany. But whether it arrived or not, no one seems to know, for all trace of the skeleton was lost.
The tazelworm as shown in an 1841 Swiss almanac.
In the 1930s a scientific society and some local newspapers put out a call for people who had seen the beast. More than sixty witnesses stepped forward. In general, the witnesses agreed as to the size and shape of what they had seen. Some said the thing had four very tiny legs, while others said it had no back legs at all. (Two-legged lizards are not unknown.
) Most of the witnesses said it had scales, and hissed like a snake. A few said that it was able to jump two or three yards. How it was able to accomplish this with tiny legs, or no back legs at all, was not explained.
One hunter said he saw the thing in 1909. Knowing that it was supposed to be poisonous, he approached with great caution. Suddenly, the beast jumped at him. He drew his hunting knife and tried to stab it, but the creature's scales were so thick that the blade would barely penetrate. After a couple of attacks the tazelworm retreated into a hole in the ground. The stunned hunter was not able to find it again.
An Austrian schoolteacher was doing a little mountain climbing in April, 1929. He stopped for a moment to rest and saw what he called a "snake-like animal" sprawled out on the ground.
"It did not move," he said, "but kept staring at me with its remarkably large eyes. I know every one of our animals at first glance and knew that I faced one that is unknown to science, the tazelworm. Excited, joyful, but at the same time somewhat fearful, I tried to grab the animal but I was too late."
For a rather stumpy looking animal, the tazelworm moved with remarkable speed. It disappeared down a hole in the ground. The disappointed schoolteacher remarked, "I am certain that it was not my imagination that led me see the animal, but that I observed with a clear head."
So another chance to prove the existence of the tazelworm skipped or slithered away. In 1934, a Swiss photographer said he snapped a picture of the beast. The picture was published in the newspapers, but frankly it looks phony.
The animal has been so hard to catch that there are many skeptics who say that it does not exist at all. They say that perhaps the people are seeing something else. One suggestion was that people might be seeing a badger that had some kind of skin condition that made it hairless and scaly looking. Badgers live in holes in the ground. They have very short legs, and can make hissing sounds. Usually badgers hide, but they can become very aggressive when they think they are being threatened.
Nonsense, say the witnesses. They know the difference between a strange-looking lizard and a bald badger.
So the argument goes on. It will go on until someone actually catches a tazelworm, or until no one reports seeing a tazelworm for so many years that people forget about it.
The same kind of argument goes on about other monsters as well.
CHAPTER 11
THE INVISIBLE KILLERS
Is someone or something going around the country killing cows and sheep, and then cutting them up?
There are a lot of people who think so.
The so-called cattle mutilation mystery is one of the goriest, and most discussed, mysteries in America today. There have been several conferences on the subject. There is an organization devoted to solving it. There is even a magazine about the cattle mutilation mystery.
Current interest in the subject began in 1974 in Nebraska and South Dakota. Ranchers would find some of their cattle dead on the range. There was no obvious cause of death. Worse yet, parts of the animal might be missing. There were no footprints or other evidence to hint at what had happened or why.
There was a real panic on the ranches. Ranchers began patrolling their ranges at night with guns. They wanted to catch whoever or whatever was responsible. They never caught anything; they never even saw anything.
The police were called in. So were veterinarians. Some veterinarians said that there was really no mystery at all. The cattle, they said, had died natural deaths. Cattle, like other living things, die for a variety of reasons. There was no evidence they had been specially killed. What about the mutilations'? The veterinarians said that small predatory animals like weasels might have gotten to the dead animals. These animals were so small and light that they would leave no footprints.
Cattle rustlers might also account for some of the deaths. Most people think that cattle rustling is only a part of the Old West. This isn't true. With the price of beef as high as it is, stealing cattle has become a very profitable business.
Still another possibility is that some of the ranchers might be killing or mutilating their own cattle. They might do this for the insurance money. Insurance companies will pay for cattle that die accidental deaths, but not for cattle that die natural deaths.
These possible explanations calmed the fears of the Nebraska and South Dakota ranchers. The scare died away after a few months. But since then cattle mutilation scares have cropped up in Texas, Arizona, and elsewhere.
The story is not a new one. People have been collecting accounts of mysterious cattle deaths for many years. Reports of similar incidents have come from many other countries, particularly Great Britain.
In addition to the ordinary explanations, often far stranger explanations have been offered for the mysterious deaths. One is that the animals have been killed by some kind of Devil's cult. It has been suggested that killing cattle is part of the ritual.
UFOs have often been blamed as the source of the phantom cattle killers. Why would creatures from other planets want to go around killing earthly cattle? No one has any reasonable suggestions. But people like to lump mysteries together, even if they have nothing to do with one another.
And then there is the monster explanation. There have been some vague reports that a monster has been seen in areas where the killings have taken place. In Nebraska and South Dakota it was called "the Thing." It was supposed to be a two-legged Bigfoot-like creature.
Now we must admit that most monster reports are hard to pin down. But these reports were even more difficult to check than most. No one seemed to know exactly who had seen "the Thing," or when or exactly where. There just seemed to be sort of a general feeling that a monster of some kind must be responsible, and no one really saw anything.
But what if the mysterious cattle killing monster was invisible? This explanation has been seriously suggested several times. And some people even say that there is evidence of the existence of an invisible monster.
One of the strangest, and spookiest, invisible monster stories appeared in the December, 1977, issue of Fate magazine. It is about what is supposed to have happened on two small farms located in a northern Michigan game preserve. The account was written by Bradley Earl Ayers, who had visited the farms and talked to the witnesses.
The farmers were given the names Art Dahl and Henry Dubois, though these were not their real names.
The trouble seemed to begin on the Dubois farm in 1971. A calf was mysteriously killed. No one thought too much of it. There are bears, and other large animals, in the area. They might have been responsible. Still, no one found any tracks.
Over the next few years there were a few more odd incidents. At first, no one connected them. Then in 1976 several of Dubois' pigs were killed. Whatever had killed them seemed to be enormously strong.
The local game warden was called in. There was nothing he could do because he couldn't find any evidence that any of the animals he knew of killed the pigs. As usual, there were no footprints.
Dubois then asked for help from his neighbor, Art Dahl. The two men, aided by their wives and families, began patrolling the farm at night. They didn't see or hear anything unusual until early in the morning of August 19.
Dubois and Dahl had been sitting up all night waiting for something to happen. They were both armed. First, they saw some strange lights in the sky. A couple of hours passed. Then they heard something coming through the marsh. It was coming right for the camper in which the men were sitting. A large dog the men had brought with them cowered under the camper. They heard a sound which they described as a "screech-growl." Dahl said it was "half-human and half-animal." It was the strangest thing he had ever heard. They saw a shadowy mass coming out of the marsh. But they never did get a good look at it, for whatever it was quickly backed off and disappeared.
The men were scared, but they investigated anyway. They found no footprints, no broken branches—nothing.
Things on the Dubois and Dahl farms were normal for the rest of the year. But
the following year, whatever it was seemed to be back again.
Dubois' brother Frank was out hunting. In the middle of the marsh he heard something following him. He couldn't see anything, but he could hear something moving through the trees. He also just had a feeling that something large was out there. It was a feeling that something was hunting him! He fired his gun several times. But the thing wouldn't go away. He was scared half to death. Finally, he got out of the marsh and ran to his brother's house. He swore he would never go into the marsh again, for anything.
A few days after his brother's fright, Dubois himself decided to explore the marsh once again. He had the same sort of experience. He heard and felt something following him. He even heard the terrifying "screech-growl" again. But he saw nothing. Since it was beginning to get dark he decided to get out of the marsh. He didn't want to be alone and meet whatever it was in the dark.
Strange deaths and mutilations of animals continued at the Michigan farms and are still reported from other parts of the country.
So there you have a thoroughly modern monster tale. What really happened? Well, the whole thing could be made up. Without names and addresses, there is no way of checking. Perhaps nothing out of the ordinary took place. Dubois and Dahl may just have become overexcited. They may have exaggerated a bit. Even people who are trying to be completely honest exaggerate, particularly if they have been frightened.
Whatever it was, or wasn't, it does show that an awful lot of people today still believe in monsters. We really do fear that there might be something terrifying and unknown prowling around out there, just beyond the light of our campfire.
