In many ways we are very lucky. We get to travel around the world looking for mystery animals, and then write books about our adventures. Of course it isn’t quite as simple as that, because there is a whole slew of mundane administration and stuff, but on the whole doing what we do is a heck of a lot better than having a proper job. We live in Woolsery and we run The Centre for Fortean Zoology – the world’s largest mystery animal research group, and once a year we invite devotees of the weird and wonderful here for the internationally famous Weird Weekend.

We also write a monthly column for The Bideford Post and we decided that it was about time that we introduced Weird Torridgeside to the blogosphere..

Thursday 10 December 2009

NEIL ARNOLD: What Happened To Me At The ‘Weird Weekend’!

I have known Neil for fifteen years now since he was a mod schoolboy with ambitions for adventure and I was an earnest young hippie who merely wanted to start a club for people interested in unknown animals. Nothing much has changed over the years. We are just both a tad older...

Being a full-time monster hunter should be about traipsing through forests in search of strange creatures. Large, exotic cats in local woods. Elusive critters in remote lakes. Peculiar insects. Escaped wallabies. A bit of ‘Nessie’ here, and giant birds there. Yet what happened to me at this years ‘Weird Weekend’, was the most terrifying moment of my life.

Myself and my girlfriend Jemma were put up by Jon and co at the lovely Braund-Phillips household at Bucks Cross. The night I lectured on weird zooform creatures – from the female-molesting ‘green underpants’, to London vampires – we retired to our room and nodded off. At 3:00 am I woke up and was fully aware that an enormous snake was in the bedroom. It was pale in colour with beige blotches over its head. The head of this thing suggested a snake around twenty-five feet in length, as its head was the size of a flattened football. Its beady eyes peered at me in the gloom and then it struck. It was a constricting snake, for when its jaws clamped on my right arm, there was no venom excreted, merely a heavy weight. I leapt up in absolute horror, screaming. I yanked my arm from its vice-like grip but then it proceeded to coil around my right leg. At this point Jemma was yelling my name, unaware of the horror that had coiled around me. I made for the door, but it dragged me back, heavily grazing my knees as they made contact with the carpet. I wrenched my leg from its grasp only to see it coil around Jemma’s legs. I pulled at her, and also attempted to open the door. Suddenly the horror dissipated and it was over. Jemma never saw the spectral snake, but recalled how she’d felt constricted in the night and smothered.

Now, people will tell me it was a dream. However, Richard Freeman and Jon both know that in the past I’ve been attacked in my bed by several vampyric amorphous blobs. On these occasions I was awake. This time I may well have drifted into some astral place, but that thing was huge and next day I showed Richard, his girlfriend Lisa and Nick Redfern the cuts on my knees. Strangely, Richard’s girlfriend Lisa recalled how a couple of years previous whilst staying at the B&B, she’d felt constricted in the night and woke to find bruises down her arms. Now, I know there’s no giant snake on the loose in Bideford, and I believe that what I saw had something to do with my lecture. It’s happened before it will probably happen again. But where these things come from I do not know, but in every case of being attacked I’ve either been drained of energy or blood. True vampires ? Who knows, but if anyone debates as to whether psychic backlash is for real, I had the marks to prove it.

Thursday 29 October 2009

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/10/devil-rides-out.html

This afternoon we are expecting a visit from a bloke called Nick Flintoff who is making a film about the Great Devon Mystery - the events that happened in early 1855 when something left a long series of footprints in the snow across great swathes of south Devon.

It is popularly believed to have been the Hornėd
One himself, although when similar things happened in Woolsery earlier this year (despite overwhelming pictorial evidence that a demonic entity had visited with his violin) we were involved in a massive cover-up financed by those who are loth to accept the awful truth that He can take on many guises, including that of a roly-poly Welshman clutching my stepdaughter's violin, and told the world's press that we believed that it was somthing made by a horny rabbit.

No.

We don't mean a jackalope, we mean a male rabbit or hare filled with testosterone and hopping strangely. But of course it was the Dark Lord Himself. And we shall be telling Mr Flintoff that this afternoon, of course.


And then we shall be having tea and biscuits, and if I am lucky, my lovely wife will have made cake. And then my nephew and I will play Command and Conquer. It is going to be a nice day.

Sunday 15 March 2009

RICHARD FREEMAN: Other historical accounts of "The Devil's Fooptprints"

THE DEVIL’S OTHER FOOTPRINTS


Though the 1855 case in Devon is the best known phenomena akin to the Devil’s Foot prints are known from other places and times.

Ralph of Coggeshall, was a monk then abbot as well as proto-Fortean who recorded all manner of odd occurrences in the 13th century (including the Merman of Orford Ness). He tells us that on June 19th of 1205 a hoof print appeared in the earth after a violent electrical storm.

The Times of March 14th 1840 reports…

Among the high mountains of that elevated district where Glenorchy, Glenlyon and Glenochay are contiguous, there have been met with several times, during this and also the former winter, upon the snow, the tracks of an animal seemingly unknown at present in Scotland. The print, in every respect, is an exact resemblance to that of a foal of considerable size, with this small difference, perhaps, that the sole seems a little longer, or not so round; but as no one has had the good fortune as yet to have obtained a glimpse of this creature, nothing more can be said of its shape or dimensions; only it has been remarked, from the depth to which the feet sank in the snow, that it must be a beast of considerable size. It has been observed also that its walk is not like that of the generality of quadrupeds, but that it is more like the bounding or leaping of a horse when scared or pursued. It is not in one locality that its tracks have been met with, but through a range of at least twelve miles.

Commander Rupert T, Gould, another early Fortean who wrote books on the Loch Ness Monster and sea serpents also unearthed an account from Kerguelen Island in the sub-Antartic. The original account was written up in May 1840, by Captain Sir James Clarke Ross, when his ships, the Erebus and Terror, were lying off Kerguelen.

'Of land animals we saw none; and the only traces we could discover of there being any on this island were the singular foot-steps of a pony or ass, found by the party detached for surveying purposes, under the command of Lieutenant Bird, and described by Doctor Robertson as "being three inches in length and two and a half in breadth, having a small and deeper depression on each side, and shaped like a horseshoe".

Both the following reports come from Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned.

In the Illustrated London News, March 17, 1855, a correspondent from Heidelberg wrote, "upon the authority of a Polish Doctor in Medicine," that on the Piaskowa-góra (Sand Hill) a small elevation on the border of Galicia, but in Russian Poland, such marks are to be seen in the snow every year, and sometimes in the sand of this hill, and "are attributed by the inhabitants to supernatural influences."

There have been many incidents of strange footprints with cloven hoofs appearing without an obvious cause. Most occur during or after a fierce electrical storm. Some of these are linked to the legend of Kui found in the Shanhaijing. This is a 2000 year old book recording the culture and geography of China prior to the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) The Shanhaijing say the Kui is a mythical monster with one leg like cloven hoof that looks kind of like a cow, except with one foot. Fierce electrical storms heralded its presence.

The Daoist Zhuangzi, who lived c. 3rd-2nd BC, mentions Kui in two chapters of the book "Autumn Floods" in which he describes Kui as a one-legged creature.

The K'uei envies the millipede, the millipede envies the snake, the snake envies the wind, the wind envies the eye, and the eye envies the mind. The K'uei said to the millipede, "I have this one leg that I hop along on, though I make little progress. Now how in the world do you manage to work all those ten thousand legs of yours?" The millipede said, "You don't understand. Haven't you ever watched a man spit? He just gives a hawk and out it comes, some drops as big as pearls, some as fine as mist, raining down in a jumble of countless particles. Now all I do is put in motion the heavenly mechanism in me ‑ I'm not aware of how the thing works."

The Jersey Devil is reputed to be a horse-headed ,bat-winged, fork-tailed horror with cloven hooves. It has supposedly terrorized the Pine Barrens of New Jersy since colonial times. The most intense flap of sightings came in January 1909 when thousands of reports of a winged monster in no less than thirty towns. In Burlington the creature left hoofprints on the rooftops and back yards in a manner akin to the Devon case of 1855. Whatever made he tracks seem to have an intrest in rubbish bins suggesting it was some kind of animal searching for food.

The residence of nearby Bristol also found hoofprints in the snow after the Post Master saw a huge bird like beast and awful screams were heard. Two local trackers said that they had never seen anything like them. Later the tracks turned up at Camden and Riverside. In Trenton, Councilman E.P. Weeden heard the flapping of wings and then found hoof prints outside his door. The prints were also found at the arsenal in Trenton. As the day wore on the Trolleys in Trenton and New Brunswick had armed drivers to ward off attacks.

It has been suggested that the Jersey Devil flap of 1909 was a newspaper hoax. If it was then it was a remarkably well-organized and far-reaching one.

On January 10th 1945 weird tracks were found in the snow in Belgium. Eric Frank Russell wrote the following in issue 15 of Doubt the magazine of the now defunct Fortean Society.

(The prints) were spotted on a snow-covered hill behind the Chateau de Morveau, near Everberg, part-way between Brussels and Louvain, Belgium, at 10 a.m on January 10th 1945. The snow varied from two to four feet in depth and I traced the prints for half a mile in a north-westerly direction until they entered a tiny wood or copse, where abruptly they disappeared A thorough search of the copse revealed no hole, lair or tree where anything might have concealed itself with-out leaving some evidence in the snow. I then traced the prints in the opposite direction, south-easterly, for nearly two miles, crossing several fields and a small stream, until they faded out on a hillside thick with windblown snow which had drifted over the prints for an unknown distance. But the sign did not reappear on the crest of the bill, nor was there any indication on the opposite sheltered side.

The prints measured about two and a half inches in length by one and a half wide, were spaced in pairs one behind the other to form a single file. the distance between prints of one pair being about nine inches, and between pairs twelve to fifteen inches. (This means they were not regularly spaced print by print, but alternated in nine and twelve-fifteen inch gaps.) They ran in a dead straight line, one print immediately behind the other without slightest misplacement to left or right. Judging by their depth whatever made them was at least the weight of a good medium-sized creature such as an Airedale.

Due to heavy frost and lack of further snow, the prints remained visible for two days, during which time I drew the attention of several people to them, including one Arthur Davies of Sheffield, and Victor Beha of London, as well as some local Belgians. Unfortunately all were singularly lacking in curiosity, Beha jesting that they must have been made by a gyroscopic rat - probably as good a guess as that of any dogmatic expert.

The Belgians could not think what they might be, never having seen the like before. Three cameras were available, all empty, and not a film to be got for love or money, otherwise I could have recorded this phenomenon for all time.

The tracks looked to me somewhat like those of a large goat, and there were goats aplenty in that part of Belgium, but goats don't step leaving single-line spoor.

Unfortunately, the prints were not as dramatic as the ones seen in Devon - they didn't run for miles and they didn't traverse rooftops.'

Saturday 14 March 2009

LOOK WHAT HELEN SENT US....

It's sunday morning, at this point in time,
everyone seems to be talking in rhyme,
so rather than commit some bad social sin
I suppose that I had better join in
Helen Lester email'd me last night
with the URL of this website
No Jokes about the License Fee,
'cos the CFZ have made the BBC!



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7942954.stm

LINDSAY SELBY: The Devil Went Down to Woolsery

The devil went down to Woolsery
Jon Downes and co were in hot pursuit
They sought it here, they sought it there
Following the devil's boots

The trail went on for yards
Prints dotted here and yon
A hoax was on the cards
I think I know the answer cried Jon

A fox, a deer, followed by a rabbit or two
Gave the appearance of the devil's shoe
With that he and his band of Fortean types
Went back to the pub and had a few pints.

A bit of bad poetry to lighten the weekend lol


Tabitca/Lindsayx

Wednesday 11 March 2009

AND THE PAPERS SAID...

As far as I am aware, the interview with the journalist from the crappier tabloid newspaper has not appeared yet, so I as yet we don't know whether I will have been quoted as claiming that the Lord of Darkness visited North Devon to rend and to slay amongst the world of men.

I did another interview, this time with The Western Morning News which is, I believe, appearing tomorrow, and also one with the North Devon Journal which may or may not get published, but the most amusing news was when we heard that this morning we appeared in the website of the most prestigious British newspaper.. The Times Online.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article5883755.ece

I am sure that the only reason that this story is attracting so much attention is that they truly think that Satan Mekakreig Himself is responsible for these mysterious imprints. Well guys, if He is, then The Devil has to be less than a foot tall! But I guess He can assume many forms...

Monday 9 March 2009

GUEST BLOGGER COLIN HIGGINS: Rants - Right on Brother!

One of my favourite guest blogs over the last few weeks has been Colin Higgins from Yorkshire, who - incidentally - was the winner of the compy in January's `On the Track`.


One of the things I most value about the CFZ is the open-mindedness with which it approaches its subjects. It’s an increasingly rare quality in a discipline, indeed a world, where an open mind is often seen as a flawed one.

Two of Jon’s recent posts found me nodding like those dogs in the back window of a Ford Anglia - his response to the diabolic footprints and his Darwinist blues refrain. My agreement shouldn’t be remarkable, he was stating an entirely mainstream view that science and evolution shouldn’t be seen as antipathetic to systems of belief and yet his position is becoming increasingly exotic.

Religious beliefs and testable hypothesise are orthogonal, which is to say they have almost nothing to say about t’other but even hinting that one may subscribe to a view about either puts you bang in the firing line of those who would see them as polar opposites.

I have no difficulty in seeing Jon’s use of the Devil’s Footprints as a euphemism, a metaphor, a narrative trigger, a historical reference and a cultural trope, even if pushed a synecdoche, so why has a linguistic inquisition developed - or a verbal Puritanism to be even-handed - that states words only ever mean they say and nothing else. Ergo, the Auld Lad has been on a jolly to North Devon: go prove it Mr. Downes!

Popular Darwinism also exercise me to the point of dancing from foot to foot like Yosemite Sam, firing off my six-shooter (all allusions for the figuratively challenged; I neither dress in a large hat, own a revolving pistol or resemble a two-dimensional Looney Tunes simulacrum).
A bit of wordy legerdemain assumes science suggests evolution, equals atheism, means humanism. Aaagh, as the teenagers say.

Most thoughtful grown-ups have no trouble in accepting Darwin’s ideas, Islam and Rome have long maintained evolution as the tool by which stuff gets done (whatever reservations one may have about some of their other tenets) and yet even a willingness to entertain a ‘more things in heaven and earth’ discursive liberalism to Fortean phenomena marks one down as a swivel-eyed Creationist book burning new-earther who handles strychnine, drinks snakes and prepares for the rapture from his heavy armed local authority maisonette. It cheeses me right off! Grow up people.

If one is serious about cryptic animals it seems entirely reasonable that one should if not embrace native transformational beliefs, Franciscan inter-species dialogue, classical animal worship and contemporary shape shifting bugaboos, then at least accept them as a narrative vein by which encounters with the animal kingdom are explained by percipients rather than condemn them as speculative and uneducated hogwash.

Having got that off my chest I shall retire to the cartoon corner into which a few will have already painted me, where animals have skills in vernacular American, Wile E Coyote transgresses the known hunting practice of Canis latrans and Roadrunner drives a coach and horses through Newtonian physics.

PREPARE FOR A STORM...

The furore over what happened the night that The Devil (didn't) go down to Woolsery seems to be growing and growing. There newspapers are even more interested in this than they were when I didn't steal a seal head back in January. This is all part of our trivia obsessed culture, and although it is mildly amusing, it is also quite disturbing. This afternoon I had a telephone call from one of the less-salubrious national newspapers who had obviously done some in-depth research on the case (they looked me up on Wikipedia, and found that I have at times been involved with the local Church). "So you are a Christian?" the person said without bothering to introduce herself.

"I don't see what my religious views have to do with you, or anyone else" I said. "But, yes".

"And your brother is a priest?" I just grunted.

"So coming from a religious background, does this make you qualified to claim that The Devil has visited a small North Devon village?"

I began to get angry. "I have never said anything of the sort" I said. The silly bint began to get all self-righteous. "You have been writing about the night the Devil went down to Woolsery".

"For God's sake", I grunted. "It's a joke! Haven't you ever heard of the Charlie Daniels Band?"

Obviously not

So, just for the record, before the people who seem to like to take a potshot at me every time that I put my head above the parapet, read whatever is printed about us with glee:

1. The Devil did NOT come to Woolsery last weekend

2. Nobody in the CFZ has ever intimated that He did

3. I am not some weirdo fundamentalist who is claiming Demonic intervention for some peculiar reason of my own

4. The footprints found last week are of perfectly natural origin (as were the more famous ones of 1855) but we don't know what caused them just yet.

5. It is interesting that so many different explanations have been mooted for the Woolsery footprints in the week since they were photographed.

6. If we can find out conclusively what caused the Woolsery prints of 2009, we will have a pretty good idea what caused the South Devon ones of 1855, and we can put an enduring mystery to bed.

7. And, by the way, we did not put out a press release about these prints. The newspapers concerned read about the mystery online and telephoned us (that will scotch the inevitable "Jon Downes is a shameless self-publicist" rumours")

but above all (for the sake of tabloid journalists who may be reading this:

I do not know what made the footprints, but it was NOT the Hornéd One. Capisce?

Sunday 8 March 2009

GUES BLOGGER NIGEL WRIGHT: That Old Devil strikes again

I had intended to have finished off my next blog for the CFZ Bloggo a few days ago, but due to the rather interesting news about new “Devil’s footprints” appearing in North Devon, a few days ago, I have decided to re-write my article. May I, at this early point, add my own comment on this new case. One thing of which I am certain is that I totally agree with Jon when he states that this is NOT a case of the devil actually appearing in our beautiful county! I am sure that there is a perfectly natural explanation for this new appearance, as well as the case from the 19th century.

So, just what did occur in Devon, all those years ago? Well, here are the bare facts of the case; in so much as we know them. On the 8th February 1855 sometime between midnight and 6a.m. mysterious footprints appeared in deep snow, between Littleham village, in East Devon and Totnes, in the South Hams of Devon. These “footprints were cloven-shaped, and seemed to run one in front of another. The distance these prints ran for was truly amazing, as was the objects they seemed to climb over. In one instance they went over a 14ft high wall! Many “explanations” were offered at the time, raging from the just plausible to the downright ridiculous! For instance, someone, who must of suffered from a very over-active imagination, offered the answer that an hot air balloon had trailed a print-making device over the area, on the end of a rope, at night!. Fine flying indeed!

What is not so well known is that this is not the first of this type of event to have occurred in the UK. Way back, in the year 1205 (19th July to be precise) a series of strange “footprints” appeared during a violent electric storm. So, whatever the cause of these mysterious visitors really is, it appears to happen a lot more often than we thought. Nor is these phenomena restricted to the UK, there are reports of similar events happening all over the known world.

Why is this particular case so interesting to me? Well, I happen to live in Littleham! And the church in the village is where the footprints started from. So this is a case that happened not a mile from my front door. The whole area of East Devon is steeped in cases of extreme weirdness. From waves of UFO activity to black cat sightings and disappearances, and much, much more! But that, as they say, is a completely different story.

Saturday 7 March 2009

THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO WOOLSERY: Jan Edwards writes...

Jan initially wrote to us the other day:

The horne'd bunny of Woolsery

My initial thought was ‘taint no bunny... looks more like a sheep or deer perhaps. But it’s hard to see how big these prints of yours are. Like you, I have seen lots of bunny footprints in snow, and they NORMALLY look like this http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_7/1109091111pKMBTf.jpg but in looking for this image on google, I came across this photo, which is also supposed to be rabbit footprints:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/5542048/2/istockphoto_5542048-animal-tracks-rabbit-footprints-in-the-snow.jpg which looks very much like your images, doesn’t it?

I currently have 21 pet rabbits looking for homes here at the sanctuary... we also have some snow.... Would it be really really terribly cruel of me to test it out? You know: Bunny walking in snow; bunny running in snow; bunny freezing it’s ...err... tail off in snow.... all in the name of science, you understand...

So I wrote back:

would you? And could you film and photograph it? We have no secure area in which to do it without the sods escaping... (and the snow is almost gone)

love


j

But two days later she replied:

Typical really.... Most of the snow has melted overnight, but more is expected in the next week. I will get you photos, and try to track down a video camera too. However, I showed your footage to a friend who is a crypto-naturalist, and HE doesn’t think it’s bunny either. The track is too straight, for one thing, and it looks biped. Rabbits (at any speed) will use all 4 feet. When it’s in a hurry, the big back feet appear to be in front of the smaller front ones, but you’d see all 4 feet... especially in snow that’s not deep. I still think it could be a deer or perhaps Boar – but the footprint would be deeper in the soft soil for boar. Do you have muntjac or roe deer nearby? Sheep /lamb perhaps, but you wouldn’t just get one. Or maybe goat??

Have you thought of Springheeled Jack?
And what do you think the “original” devil prints were? I have theories ranging from elaborate hoax to weather balloon, but I don’t believe the tracks went on for hundreds of miles, as reported.
Meanwhile.... back at the Ranch... we have our own mystery here. Not nearly to this scale (always trying to get one better, aren’t you?) but a mystery all the same. It’s the Phantom Peanut Pincher. We have bags of peanuts and suet balls and things hanging on trees for the birds. Something is eating a whole bag of peanuts and stealing suet balls from one of the trees during the night. Whatever-it-is, is too timid to come close to the house, where the birds make use of the food. It doesn’t tear holes in the peanut bag, like a rat or a squirrel would. It isn’t a small bird, because they go on all our bird feeders, and the other ones are only needing topped up once or twice a week.... plus whatever-it-is, takes down the mesh bags of suet and eats the contents, 10 foot from the tree on a dry stone wall. We are going to set a trap tonight – wet sand around the bottom of the tree, to see if we can get some tracks. I’m wondering about a pine marten...

Well, as always seems to be the case, you start looking at one mystery and you end up looking at another. I have been on the track of England's elusive marten population for twenty years now, and there are, indeed, records of this rare and beautiful carnivore in Co. Durham. The only problem being that according to accepted scientific methodology the species was hunted to extinction in all of England by the 1870s....

Friday 6 March 2009

THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO WOOLSERY: Paul Vella thinks...

I was chatting to Paul Vella on MSN this morning. Here are some excerpts from our conversation...




Paul Vella says:
I think the solution is 'sheep'
Paul Vella says:
it seems that they bring their back feeet right up to their front feet when they walk and can look vaguely bipedal
Paul Vella says:
http://www.buyimage.co.uk/photonet/peaks04/pages/3763.htm


Jon D says:
i think there would be lots more damage to the snow and the garden itself if there were sheep in there overnight
Jon D says:
bloody hell
Paul Vella says:
what if there were only one?
Paul Vella says:
here is one in deeper snow where the sheep's belly has dragged through the snow http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/3276491530/


Jon D says:
Pauly. Can I cobble together excerpts from this convcersation in a bloggo posting?
Paul Vella says:
sure
Paul Vella says:
if it were a sheep, it might explain how it scaled a fence
Paul Vella says:
otherwise, I'm out of ideas now.
Paul Vella says:
But I thought those photos of the sheep tracks were odd - I'd never seen sheep tracks in snow before
Jon D says:
yes
Paul Vella says:
you would swear blind they were bipedal
Paul Vella says:
bears do the same thing, which I think is the most common cause of bigfoot tracks
Paul Vella says:
the hind feet and the front feet create one elongated print


Jon D says:
weird isnt it
Paul Vella says:
very. If it isn't a sheep, then I have no idea

THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO WOOLSERY: Dave McMann thinks....

How can I put this without offending you Jon? OK, you've known me long enough, so you know I don't mean anything untoward to you and CFZ.

OK. My theory. Kids. Let's face it. It happens near you, plus, looking at the video, the tracks are near bushes, so a telescopic angular device could have made those track. Also a one legged beast??? Also, that woman was far from convincing, if she had phoned the Sun she would have made a few quid!! I am certainly not saying you are involved with this 'hoax' It screams FAKE!

Nice entertainment though.

I don't agree Dave, but am not the slightest bit offended by your suggestion. I could have been done by kids, but I don't think it was.

Why?


1. There were no kids. It wasn't a bad enough snowfall to cause school outages even in these poncy health + safety obsessed days.

2. Apart from us fortean types, no-one has heard of the Devil's footprint mystery these days

3. There was bo sign of human disturbance to the snow until Graham arrived


And the beat goes on.........
There’s an old-fashioned phrase, “there’s method in our madness.”

Today was a day when I went for lots of method, and saved up all the madness for later on.

When I carried the CFZ rubbish bags out into the road Wednesday night, the 4th of March 2009, it was snowing. I was surprised: I thought we’d seen the last of the “Christmas postcard” look, this winter. But I shrugged (mainly to shake snowflakes from my shoulders) – and retreated back indoors and thought no more of it. Until…

Thursday morning, got a phone call at around 0950 from Mrs Wade - a resident of our village - that some strange footprints were in her back garden. I was the only one awake (it had been a long and difficult evening, yesterday), so I grabbed my camera and headed off to have a look.

On arrival, shortly after 10am, my early and non-zoological impression was that the the prints looked like they’d been made by a one-legged deer. Sometimes, people describe an animal that’s missing a leg as “one-legged” when really they mean “three-legged” – and I may not be a zoologist, but I know enough to dismiss the idea of a one-legged deer pogo-ing around the rural landscape.

Mrs Wade recapitulated for the video camera how she’d seen these footprints from her window, had wondered what they were – and had then decided to ring the CFZ.

I was in preliminary investigation mode: rather like Sherlock Holmes, who said it’s a capital error to theorise in the absence of data. So, I just improvised. I’m very unused to studying snowprints, as we don’t get much snow in Devon. Mud, yes. There’s plenty of that in Devon. But mud’s quite a different medium, as sloppy mud doesn’t retain imprint countours and firmer mud doesn’t compact nearly so readily as snow.

Anyhow, the tracks presented a markedly in-line appearance, ie there was no discernable left-right-left-right pattern straddling an imaginary centre line.

I inferred direction of travel from the fact that one end of each track was clearly defined, whereas the other end was blurred. Forward motion of a human in the snow usually shows a well-defined heel print and a scuffed toe impression, so I decided to allow myself that assumption. A working assumption, of course.

The track ran from the far end of the lawn, across the almost-pristine snowy surface (just a few bird prints showed), and petered out at the paved area adjecent to the house, where the snow had already melted. Another linear string of tracks headed back out from the patio area, across the other side of the lawn.

So, with my back to the house, and facing south across the lawn, the inbound track (on my right) approached from the SSW (ie, south-west, but more south than west: a bearing of around 190º, I’d say). On the other side of the patio (my left), the tracks resumed in an arc roughly SSE (bearing 170º) back towards the end of the lawn area. The patio distance between the arrival point and departure point was roughly 20 ft.

Each print was roughly horseshoe-shaped, as if made by a cloven hoof – or two elongated feet close together, that move in unison. A U-shape describes the track quite well; V-shaped equally so. Something inbetween, really.

Devil’s Footprints? Well, the area at the dead centre of each overall shape showed no discernable impaction in the snow. The snow was around 2cm (almost one inch) deep, and a cloven foot would have to have an unusually deep cleft to leave that portion of the snow untouched. However, the sun was already destroying the early-morning evidence, and it was difficult to be sure.

After taking a few pictures, I suddenly had the bright idea of following the prints. Remember, this was 10am in the village of the CFZ, and I’d only had one coffee so far, so I wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet.

I found the garden had a well-defined boundary fencing – nothing that would thwart an intact deer, but definitely one that would make a one-legged deer scratch its head… assuming it had any spare limbs with which to do that, of course…

Following what I felt were the departing tracks, I found they fizzled out at the boundary hedge: snow had fallen on the hedge itself, but none had fallen – or at least none remained – under­ the hedge. So that trail had run cold. As a second-best, I then back-tracked the prints approaching the house, and found they fizzled out in exactly the same manner. However, the snow on each hedge and its associated shrubbery showed no significant disturbance, so I concluded nothing had barged through the foliage since the snowfall.

Inference: something had passed under the hedge? Something pretty small? A Mad March Hare, maybe?

Well, yes - possibly: on considering the matter later on, I decided the entity had not jumped the hedge. There was no snow-scatter (or deeper impression in the lawn itself) that one would expect if something had jumped a barrier several feet high and then landed on the other side. Not that I had ever thought this was seriously the case, but one has to cover all bases – remember, I had set myself the task of gathering data, rather than jumping to conclusions.

Since the snow in the vicinity of the hedge was shaded from the rising sun, there had been little melting, and thus tracks were well-preserved. However, since the snow in Woolsery mainly had arrived on a south-westerly track, approaching the garden from its (roughly) southern aspect, the areas most shielded from the sun had earlier also been well-shielded from the snow! So tracks were better-preserved there, but also less pronounced, since there was less snow to do the preserving in the first place.

If the snow had been borne on a northerly wind, then ingress and egress evidence might have been a lot more conspicuous. Still, there you go: we don’t always get what we wish for, in life, do we?

Observing a crime scene and not jumping to conclusions has been drummed into me by watching many Forensic Detectives shows on Discovery. But I couldn’t help but feel that this was probably tracks of a rabbit or hare. Something that hops with its feet together, anyway. The alternatives – that either a one-legged deer was exploring people’s gardens, or that Woolsery had received its first cloven-hoofed emissary from the Devil – these were both too much to contemplate before my second coffee of the morning!

Thursday 5 March 2009

THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO WOOLSERY: the video



WHEN THE GOING GETS WEIRD: The Devil Went Down to Woolsery

Now, I would like to say, here and now, that if I was standing on the outside looking in, I wouldn't believe this story at all, and I would be convinced that those naughty rapscallions at the CFZ had got a little tipsy in The Farmers Arms last night, and were playing a joke upon the rest of the fortean omniverse.


But, speaking as one of the aforementioned rapscallions, I can assure you that I am not!



Just before ten this morning, when Graham was toddling about the place all on his lonesome (because Graham is the first of the CFZ posse to rise in the morning) the telephone rang, and - being a dutiful fellow - he answered it.



It was a local lady who wondered if we would like to go and have a look at some peculiar footprints in the snow in her garden. Graham finished his coffee, grabbed the cameras and set off.

Despite the slidy nature of the roads (the snow having taken everyone by surprise) it only took him a few minutes to get to his destination, a private house next to a small close called `East Park`. (Yes there is a `South Park in the village, much to the amusement of all and sundry especially Oll and Richard)

In the garden he found a long line of footprints leading across the snowy lawn. As you can see, the only human footprints next to them are Graham's.

I am sure that you are all aware of the legend of the Devil's hoofprints - an occasion in February 1855 when a series of prints of what appeared to be cloven hooves were found in the snow all across South Devon. The superstitious locals believed that they were the work of the Devil and that the hornèd one had paid a personal visit to the county.

Well I don't believe that happened then, and I don't believe that is what happened last night either. There is certainly a perfectly rational zoological explanation for both events but our investigations are at a very early stage. In must be stressed however, that there are no scuff marks in the snow as would happen if a person had walked, and although the marks could have been made by someone on stilts that is highly unlikely.

Our investigations are continuing, and we will bring you more news as we get it...

Sunday 11 January 2009

And in the end the skulls you take, are equal to the rules you break...

Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the mystery of the Croyde beach carcass has now been solved once and for all. Zoologist Darren Naish, an old friend of the CFZ, who is probably most familiar to the world at large as the author of Tetrapod Zoology, an embarrassingly popular, and very informative blog which kicks everything we do into a cocked hat popularity wise, has delivered his verdict.

"Hi Jon

Many, many thanks for uploading and linking to the pics - they are excellent, and I'm pleased to see that there are some with a scale. The Daily Mail photos made me think that it might be an otariid, but your photos demonstrate without doubt that it is a Grey seal after all. How do I know this? ...

-- In otariids, the nasals only extend to the anterior margin of the orbit: in phocids, the nasals extend much further posteriorly. Furthermore, otariids have bony lumps on the frontals (termed the supraorbital processes) that project over the orbits. Phocids lack these. The Croyd Beach skull has posteriorly extending nasals and no supraorbital processes. It is thus definitely a phocid (= earless seal). I'm very surprised that some 'experts' said that it was not a phocid skull.

-- The nasal bones are unusually short in the specimen (compared to most phocids) and the nasal cavity is very deep, giving the anterior margin of the snout a steep, sawn-off look. Short nasals and a deep nasal cavity are both characteristic of Halichoerus, the grey seal. The skull definitely belongs to that taxon, case closed."

I can also exclusively reveal that the CFZ 3 are not going to get arrested and dragged away into penal servitude. We had a long and extremely cordial conversation with Sgt Jeff Pearce of Braunton police station. He was very pleased to find out what we had done, and we promised him that we would keep him informed as to the progress of the inquiry.

However, he did give us another germ of information which both intrigues and disturbs us. Two national agencies were quoted in various newspapers as having said that the corpse was not that of a grey seal, but when I telephoned both agencies on Friday afternoon, they both insisted that they had told everybody that it was a grey seal. I had assumed that this was the work of an over eager tabloid newspaper reporter, but Sgt Pearce, who came across as an eminently sensible and reliable bloke gave me the names of the people who he had spoken to at of the aforementioned agencies, who had indeed told him that the corpse was not of a grey seal.

From a personal sense of inquisitiveness, and also from a professional point of view, I would love to know why these people, one of whom was quite a high-ranking expert, said what they did. However, it doesn't really matter, and I will not be pursuing the matter purely because I want to be (if I may misquote the Church of England, book of common prayer) in a state of love and charity with my professional neighbours, and these are people with whom it is quite likely that I shall have to work in the future.

So, the story is solved. It was a seal which may have had slightly abnormal nasal cavities. However, we are now on the position to be able to state this as incontrovertible fact. The CFZ went out and got the skull, and will be keeping it in our museum because of the minor position which it will always hold in the history of cryptozoology. We have got a new friend in Sgt Pearce, and have been able to prove, as if any proof is necessary, that the tabloid press is not necessarily the best source of good scientific evidence.

Case closed.

Friday 9 January 2009

Messages of support

Good work Jon.

It makes a change to read one of these of these stories in which (a) a Cryptozoological outfit got straight on it, (b) they managed to secure the specimen before it vanished, got lost being sent to a lab,washed away etc.

The CFZ should be congratulated for securing the specimen so that research can establish what it is. Let us not forget that even if it is a dead seal we have the actual specimen, NOT a press cutting, memory of someone's neighbour, recollection of specimen seen 30 years ago etc.

This is what Fortean research is about.The actual carcass preserved and documented on site ,and available to serious researchers, and I am sure if a bigfoot carcass turned up in the USA,Loren would equally be up to bagging and tagging as fast as possible!

Steve Jones


Jon and team.

Congratulations on the find, amazing indeed and it certainly could not be in better hands. I would just like to know with this latest turn towards nefarious activities are we to be issued, as members of the CFC, with ski masks with the CFC logo so we can follow the leadership of your massively daring raid. LOL :)

Joking aside well done on such a magnificent find.

Kindest of regards

Tony Lucas
NZ Cryptozoologist.

CONFESSIONS OF A CRYPTOZOOLOGIST: Graham Inglis




Graham account of 7 Jan 2009 trek to Croyde

News came in that a mystery carcass had been washed up on Croyde beach. Croyde's only around 30 miles from the CFZ: right on our own doorstep, so preparations were swiftly made to set off and have a look.

I hastily gathered a few tools – garden spades, a saw, and a hammer and chisel, and set off with Oll. We collected Matt in Bideford – he was the only one of us equipped with wellies, I noted – and we proceeded to Croyde and found somewhere to park. Not difficult, in early January, with the temperature below 0ºC.

Croyde bay is a west-facing bay. The rocky footpath down to the north end of the beach runs past a display board giving a map of the bay area. The beach is around half a mile long, bracketed at each end by rock strata, strata that have been turned vertical by a previous geological upheaval. The direction of the strata was left-to-right as we looked along the length of the beach, which slowed access to the sands somewhat.

Oll, carrying the cameras, tracked along the strata to hit the beach at its top, whereas Matt and I, conscious that there wasn't much daylight left, cut across the strata formation as a sort of advance party. It was a matter of climbing up a ridge and down; up the next ridge and down.

The carcass had been reported as having been washed up a day or so ago, and Matt told us it was currently high tide (or maybe an hour past high tide); therefore we could expect to find the remains near the water-line that we were now seeing. That simplified the walking aspect, as it meant we could walk on the firm, wet sand near the lapping waves, rather than have to trudge through the soft sand further up the beach.

Halfway along the beach, we found it's split in two by a stream flowing down into the sea. Matt spotted a group of people at the top of the beach, who seemed interested in something – two were crouching down – so he turned upstream to investigate, while I volunteered to check the southern half of the beach that lay beyond the stream.

Jumping the stream presented no difficulties; my lack of wellies didn't matter on this occasion, so I continued south along the seashore, as far as the strata that forms the end of the beach. Nothing of interest found, so I returned, and met Matt. Matt reported that the group of people he'd been to see had been involved in nothing more than icicle-breaking, an unusual occupation for a bunch of visitors to a beach.

We retraced our steps back to meet Oll, and had a discussion. Matt then had a phone call and was told the carcass was in the Downend Rocks area. Damn. If only I'd taken a photo of the information board we'd passed, we could have looked at the map on the digital camera. As it was, I volunteered to nip back and have a look.

It turned out that Downend Rocks was the area beyond the southernmost extent of the beach, so driving there was the best scheme. I waved to my companions and indicated they should join me – in which time I set off to retrieve the car from the car park.

On the road again, it seemed a long drive just to get round a half-mile beach. However, we parked again, and took a footpath down into the rocky area. The general pattern was ridges of rock strata running out into the sea, with clear channels between them, the ridges and gaps both of varying widths. By now, the sun was about to set, so we split up again and Matt found the carcass. As I arrived, the sun was sinking into the sea… a nice sunset, but not ideal conditions for photography and videography of a biological specimen.

Obeying the primary rule of forensics – take photos before disturbing the body – we hastily set about getting pictures and video. The body cavity was open, and a dark pool of liquid could be seen below the ribs. There had been talk of bringing the specimen back to the CFZ intact, but I didn't relish the idea of that stuff sloshing about in the back of the car.

After general discussion with Jon back at base, it was decided to collect the skull and a back leg as samples. Debate about the legal situation followed. If it's private land, presumably jetsam (material washed up that's of a non-floating type, as opposed to flotsam) would belong to the land owners. If one wrenches the head off a body, is that criminal damage? But who will complain about damage to a rotting body? After a few minutes it was decided to go ahead with specimen collection.

The animal's left rear leg came free as easily as the leg of a roast chicken. The head was another matter, being connected by a leathery material and what appeared to be cartilage in addition. A hammer and chisel was deployed to disengage the skull from the rest of the body.

With the light fading fast, and a series of craggy ridges to negotiate, it was time to leave, and the samples were carried away, to be studied back at base.

CONFESSIONS OF A CRYPTOZOOLOGIST:
Oll Lewis


The Croyde Carcass

When I walked into the CFZ office this morning I was greeted by Jon who seemed to be in a particularly excited mood.

“What do you make of this!?” he exclaimed and gestured at a photograph on his computer screen.

The photo was of a rotted carcass that had been found on a local beach, and had been emailed to us by the local newspaper. Apparently, the newspaper was concerned that the animal might be a local big cat that had fallen off a cliff and died before its body was washed along the coast.

“Can you zoom in on the dentition?” I asked and Jon obliged.

“Well,” I said looking at the animal’s teeth “It’s definitely a carnivore.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Jon replied.

“Well… If you look at the nasal cavity it looks like it is far too large to be a cat or dog.
The shape of the skull is completely wrong too.”

“Could it be a seal?” asked Jon

“I’d say that’s definitely the most likely candidate.” I said cautiously before I hunted out some photographs of seal skulls just to be sure. The photographs confirmed our suspicions and it was decided it would be a good idea to try to find the carcass so that we could make our own examination and collect samples. Graham and I were to go to Croyde, where the body had washed up, picking up Matt Osborne on the way, and attempt to locate it.

And so for the second time since I joined the Centre for Fortean Zoology I found myself looking for a decayed body on a beach. The first time had been the on Gambia expedition in 2006 where, armed with a map of a burial site and small spades, we had attempted to unearth the body of a sea monster that had supposedly been buried right next to a nightclub owned by the presidents brother. Considering the recent case in Gambia where two British missionaries have been sentenced to one year of hard labour and ordered to pay a £6000 fine for just writing disparaging things about the Gambian president on a postcard, it was quite lucky we were not caught not everyone would have believed we were looking for a sea monster. The conditions could not have been more different this time though. The heat in the Gambia had been stiflingly hot, but on Croyde beach the temperature was colder than zero degrees Celsius.

We gingerly picked our way across the jagged rocks on the west end of the bay, taking care to avoid slipping on the ice or putting our feet though the icy crusts of frozen rock pools. Once we made it across the rocks, without breaking any bones, it seemed our search would be much easier because most of Croyde beach was covered in sand and there would be few nooks and crannies for the carcass to be hiding in. This search proved to be fruitless and as we made it back to the cars Matt phoned Jon to see if he had uncovered any more information that could aid our search. Jon said that he had found out that the carcass had been found in a spot called the ‘Down End rocks’.

We located a map of the beach on a sign near the slipway we had entered the beach from but could not find a place called Down End Rocks, we did find the Down End Road so it was pretty obvious that it was the area to check out. It was the opposite end of the beach.

We drove the car around to that end of the beach and searched for an access point. We found one and scanned the rocks from a vantage point atop the cliffs hoping to spot the carcass. We couldn’t see it so elected to split up to cover a larger area in the hope of finding the body before the light failed. After a while Matt appeared over an outcrop of rock in the far distance and started waving wildly at me. This could only mean one thing; the body had been found!

I clambered over the icy rocks, swearing to myself that if this was a practical joke on Matt’s part then he would be in serious danger, but finally I made it to the outcrop. From the top of this rock I beheld a marvellous sight. Never before had a putrid pinniped looked so good! We examined the corpse took photographs and removed several samples for study back at the Centre for Fortean Zoology (the head and the back right limb) and had to leave the beach quickly as the sun was setting. Icy rocks, incoming tide and darkness do not mix well together.

We drove home though the freezing night with all the windows open to stop the stench from the samples overpowering us and reflected on a good days work. Over the next few days we will be emailing photographs of the skull to several experts for their opinion on what the animal is.

A SEAL OF APPROVAL.....


Last Updated 12th January:

The saga of the Cadaver of Croyde (I refuse to use Matthew Osborne's appalling title of Beast of the Bay) trundles on. As the amount of data we are getting on the subject mounts up, here is an index to it all:


Our First Press Release
The newspaper reports which triggered the second press release
Our Second Press Release
Slideshow of the skull
CONFESSIONS OF A CRYPTOZOOLOGIST: Oll Lewis
CONFESSIONS OF A CRYPTOZOOLOGIST: Graham Inglis
Messages of support
More press clippings, and an endorsement by Dr Daz
CONFESSIONS OF AN ALL ROUND GOOD EGG - Matty Osborne takes the stand



The Case is solved!




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Bloody hell, The Sun says we have stolen the skull....

For immediate release
9th January 2009
It was us! We did it....

The saga of the mysterious cadaver of Croyde Beach in sunny North Devon trundles on., According to today's papers, "Last night, in a further twist, police reported the beast’s skull STOLEN." Well it hasn't been... we've got it! Because of the possibility that this corpse might conceivably be the body of only the second sealion ever to turn up on British waters, we were concerned that a specimen of potential scientific importance would be removed by the environmental health department, or chewed up by a badger, fox, or dog, and unilaterally decided that we should try our best to preserve it for posterity.

The beach is actually owned by a holiday camp, which in turn is owned by a firm based in Newcastle. We were unable to get all of anybody at the holiday camp, because it's the middle of the winter, and nobody in their right minds would be on holiday in North Devon at this time of year. So, determined - as always - to be good law-abiding citizens, we telephoned the parent company. Nobody in the management department was available to speak to us, but we spoke to a delightful young lady called Gemma who told us that she was sure that nobody from a major holiday network would actually want the suppurating carcass remains of an unfortunately deceased pinniped, but nevertheless agreed to log my call and be witness to the fact that neither I, or anyone else at the CFZ has any intention of permanently depriving Parkdean holidays of part of a dead seal, and that if they want the shull and/or rear flipper back they only have to ask. Gemma thought that this was all terribly exciting, and rather amusing. She wished us luck, and our call ended.

After reading today's papers, CFZ Director Jon Downes (49) telephoned Braunton Police Station, and spoke to the Duty Officer, telling him the state of affairs, and explaining that the missing skull and flipper are at present in a bucket of formalin at the offices of the CFZ (the world's largest mystery animal research group). Disappointingly for his street cred, he was told that an immediate arrest was highly unlikely, and that the Police were merely happy that the cadaver was "in the hands of the professionals". On hearing this, Corinna Downes (52), Jon's wife, and administrator of the CFZ stopped making the placards reading "Free the CFZ Three" and went back to her normal activities.

There are still two mysteries to be solved.

Today's newspapers said that "Some locals suggested it could be a seal, but The Marine Conservation Society and the National Seal Sanctuary both stated it was not." We telephoned both organisations, who stated categorically that not only was the corpse that of a seal, but that they had always said as much to each reporter who had interviewed them. Someone has got the wrong end of the stick at some point during this mildly amusing saga.

The second mystery of course, as we said in an earlier press release, is to establish the precise identity of the creature. Whilst it is almost certain that is a grey seal, there is the outside possibility that it could be something more exciting. One of the experts who first viewed of the photographs suggested that it looked like the skull of a sealion. There are seven species in the world, but with the exception of one species found on the coast of Argentina, all sealions are restricted to the Pacific Ocean. However, in the 1980s a Steller's sealion turned up on the Brisons - two tiny islets, a mile out to sea from the west coast of Cornwall. No one knew how it got there, and - as far as we know - it may still be there today. So, the mysterious cadaver of Croyde might just be only the second sealion ever to grace these shores.

Totally coincidentally, this weekend sees the CFZ annual general meeting, and experts from across the country will be coming to Jon and Corinna's house to discuss the next years activities. Tomorrow afternoon, experts will be examining the skull and other samples, and we will hopefully have a conclusive answer. So, although it certainly isn't anything to do with the beast of Exmoor, it might just be only the second sealion ever to grace these shores.

Jon Downes will be appearing at London's Royal Academy on Saturday the 17th of January, and he will make a public announcement to finally wrap the affair up, once and for all.

JON DOWNES IS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW, AND PICTURES OF THE CORPSE AND ALL THE PEOPLE INVOLVED ARE AVAILABLE. PLEASE TELEPHONE JON OR CORINNA ON 01237 431413

NOTES TO EDITORS


* The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (4 and is a non-profit making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
* Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over 20 books. Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of the grotesque vampiric chupacabra, will be published in the next few weeks.
* The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including Russia, Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and Loch Morar.
* CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals & Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and Exotic Pets, Britain’s only dedicated magazine on the subject.
* The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv www.cfztv.org. One of their films `Lair of the Red Worm` which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition has now been seen by nearly 50,000 people.
* The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon which he shares with his wife Corinna (52). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and a collection of exotic animals.
* Jonathan Downes presents a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work of the CFZ.
* The CFZ are opening a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.
* Following their successful partnership with Capcom www.capcom.com on the 2007 Guyana expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.

AND THE PAPERS SAID...

The Sun

The Daily Mail

Slideshow of the skull

WHAT A WAY TO START 2009

For immediate release
9th January 2009

Mystery skull on North Devon beach


Well it's a beast. It was found fairly near Exmoor. But is it the beast of Exmoor? Of course not. It has flippers for one thing.

Two nights ago a carcass was washed up on Croyde Beach in North Devon. The Centre for Fortean Zoology, [CFZ], were informed, and they sent a three-man team of investigators - Graham Inglis (52), deputy director, Oll Lewis (28), ecologist, and Matthew Osborne (28), one time Bideford town councillor, trainee Methodist lay preacher, and all round good egg - to find out what the fuss was about. The CFZ are the world's largest mystery animal research organisation, and they happen to be based less than 30 miles from where the mysterious carcass was washed up.

Various newspapers and media pundits have claimed that what was washed up was the cadaver of the beast of Exmoor - the notorious big black cat which for decades has been selling newspapers and killing sheep with equal abandon. From the photographs we had been e-mailed, it was pretty obvious that this was nonsense, that the CFZ would not be doing their job properly if they just took a cursory look at the photograph on their computers, before dismissing the matter from their minds.

The body was about 5 ft long, and - according to the team - reeked to high heaven. It was obviously a member of the seal family, and is almost certainly the remains of an unfortunate grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), which is a fairly common resident of the wilder parts of the Bristol Channel. However, there is an outside possibility that it could be something more exciting. One of the experts who first viewed of the photographs suggested that it looked like the skull of a sealion. There are seven species in the world, but with the exception of one species found on the coast of Argentina, all sealions are restricted to the Pacific Ocean. However, in the 1980s a Steller's sealion turned up on the Brisons - two tiny islets, a mile out to sea from the west coast of Cornwall. No one knew how it got there, and - as far as we know - it may still be there today.

Experts will be examining the skull and other samples over the next few days, and will hopefully have a conclusive answer. So, although it certainly isn't anything to do with the beast of Exmoor, it might just be only the second sealion ever to grace these shores.

Watch this space.

NOTES TO EDITORS


* The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (4 and is a non-profit making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
* Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over 20 books. Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of the grotesque vampiric chupacabra, will be published in the next few weeks.
* The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including Russia, Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and Loch Morar.
* CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals & Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and Exotic Pets, Britain’s only dedicated magazine on the subject.
* The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv www.cfztv.org. One of their films `Lair of the Red Worm` which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition has now been seen by nearly 50,000 people.
* The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon which he shares with his wife Corinna (52). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and a collection of exotic animals.
* Jonathan Downes presents a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work of the CFZ.
* The CFZ are opening a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.
* Following their successful partnership with Capcom www.capcom.com on the 2007 Guyana expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.