| Submit your comments on this article |
| Russia |
| Prehistoric monsters return to modern times (Pravda stikes again) |
| 2004-07-15 |
| Now it is possible to catch a prehistoric fish, which became extinct millions of years ago. Driving along the coastline near Bonavista Cape (Newfoundland, Canada) Bob Crew saw something strange one fine morning. He stopped the truck to take a better look at a weird creature, which put its head out of water. The man thought at first that it was just a rock on the surface, but then it occurred to him that there were no rocks in the area. Then the man could see that the animal looked like a giant snake, its neck was about 1.5 meters long. The creature’s head was crowned with a crest. Bob Crew could not remember any other details, but he was certain he had seen an extraordinary animal. Citizens of the small Japanese town of Yoshii gathered for a real hunt in the summer of 2000. People wanted to trace and kill a mysterious creature that they nicknamed tsuchinoko. Local authorities promised a 20 million yen reward for capturing the animal. The creature was reminiscent of a giant lizard or a snake. It could produce sounds like bird’s chirping. Tsuchinoko mania gripped the Japanese town and its outskirts in May of 2000. It started when a farmer incidentally found a big snake crawling on his field. The man slashed the creature with a whip, but the monster escaped to the stream nearby. An elderly woman found the dead animal beside the same stream several days later. She decided to bury the animal. When local authorities learned about the strange incident, they ordered to exhume the animal’s body and hand it over to a scientific institute. The professor examined the creature and concluded that it was most likely the animal often referred to as tsuchinoko, although it could be classified as a snake from the scientific point of view. Yet, the townspeople believed the story with the monster was not over. Another elderly woman saw tsuchinoko swimming along the river not far from her house. The snake had an unusual round snout. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |