CFZ IN THE PRESS

Fortean zoologists on snow footprint trail
This is North Devon

THE 150-YEAR-OLD mystery of what caused a long trail of hoof-like marks could be solved — thanks to the latest batch of snow.

In February 1855, after a fall of snow, footprints were discovered in Devon, stretching 100 miles from Exmouth to Teignmouth.

For the greater part of their course they followed straight lines. Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were travelled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls.

The prints were dubbed The Devil's Footprints. Then in March last year, similar footprints appeared in a Woolsery garden after a fall of snow.

Read On

CFZ IN THE PRESS

Fortean zoologists on snow footprint trail
This is North Devon

THE 150-YEAR-OLD mystery of what caused a long trail of hoof-like marks could be solved — thanks to the latest batch of snow.

In February 1855, after a fall of snow, footprints were discovered in Devon, stretching 100 miles from Exmouth to Teignmouth.

For the greater part of their course they followed straight lines. Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were travelled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls.

The prints were dubbed The Devil's Footprints. Then in March last year, similar footprints appeared in a Woolsery garden after a fall of snow.

Read On

OLL LEWIS: On the track of Unusual Tracks

When the current cold snap started about ten days ago, Jon and I were talking about things that we might investigate this month, and the subject of the report of the devil’s footprints we had investigated in the village this time last year came up. Our conclusion had been that a rabbit lolloping around in the snow in an unusual manner most likely made them but, Jon hoped, it would be interesting to see if similar tracks turned up in the snow this year in order that we could compare them. I said, “I don’t know about that, but I’d be interested in seeing if anyone sees any tracks from the Hartland cat.”

Several witnesses have seen the Hartland cat in the woods and farmland around the areas of Hartland and Woolsery for a number of years. (And yes, these sightings date from long before we moved into Woolsery before some armchair pundit with half the facts decides to act like an internet tough guy and accuse us of making the whole thing up). If local rumours are to be believed there is more than one of them too. Jon is currently making a film about the big cat sightings in the area and our friend Emily’s investigation of those in the locality that she began after hearing of a sighting of the cat by her uncle.

Around this time of year, two years ago, we received a ‘phone call from Roger Heywood from Duerdon farm just outside Woolsery about a sheep kill. He had seen the sheep happily frolicking about in the field the afternoon before, but the next morning found the animal skinned with most of the flesh removed. Roger did the sensible thing and called his local mystery animal investigation team and we sent Richard Freeman to take a look. After examining the corpse Richard was left in no doubt that a big cat had dispatched the unfortunate sheep.

Today (the 13th of January) Roger made another ‘phone call; he had some unusual prints in the snow. As the light was fading Graham and I quickly grabbed a tape-measure, my notepad, a torch, digital camera and film camera and hot-footed it (well ‘hot-four-wheel-drived it’ technically but lets not split hairs here) to Duerdon Farm, where Roger was waiting. We then followed Roger’s tractor to the field where the tracks had been found. By the time we reached the field, twilight had set in, but in the powerful headlights of the tractor we could see a line of tracks stretching from one end of the field to the other. Most of the tracks were in the deep, otherwise unbroken virgin snow that covered the field but when they reached tracks from a previous visit of the tractor they followed this track for a few paces. When I asked Roger when the tractor track had been made he said it was from yesterday evening and because he found the animal’s tracks when he had been out at about 2pm this means the tracks must have been made between around 5pm and lunchtime the next day. Not wanting to disturb the line of animal tracks, I walked down the existing tractor tracks to get a closer look at the animal tracks.

The tracks themselves were very interesting. One set in deep snow that I examined closely showed that the animal was placing its back paw in the imprint of the forepaw; this is not something canines do when they walk so that, along with the shape of the prints, meant that I could eliminate dogs and foxes from my list of possible culprits. There was no sign of webbing between the toes either, which was a good indication that the tracks were not made by otters. I hesitate slightly to say that these prints were definitely made by a big cat though because of the toes; there are five of them. However, a number of big cat researchers have found anomalies in the paw prints they’ve found in their area, including things like apparently non-retractable claws or polydactylism, which might be consistent with interbreeding among a very small group of individuals over several generations. Keeping it in the family can play havoc with feline Hox genes it would seem and polydactylism in felines it is not all that uncommon; my childhood pet cat, Tigger, started off life as part of a family of stray moggies on a farm and had more than her fair share of digits for example. As well as the possibility of it being a big cat, I would also consider the possibility of the prints having been made by a badger but there are one or two problems with this theory too as none of the tracks show evidence of claws as one would expect to see in a badger track. And then there is the size of the prints.

The print from the forepaw measures about 8cm by 9cm and the back paw print measures 5cm by 6 cm with a stride length of 71cm. This is rather larger than a badger where the forepaws would be expected to be around 4-5 cm and the stride would be about 50cm, so if it is a badger then it would have to be huge and such a large badger could perhaps be considered a cryptid in itself. As well as taking a number of photographs, Graham also made use of the digger scoop of Roger’s tractor in order to be lifted aloft to get some photographs of the tracks stretching across the field. Once we had obtained as many photographs as was possible in the fading light, we returned to Roger’s house where I filmed an interview with him and then it was home to Myrtle Cottage to inform Jon of what we had found.

If the snow hasn’t thawed by tomorrow morning we hope to be able to get plaster casts of some of the prints, but in the meantime take a look at the photos, what do you think? Is it a big cat, an abnormally large super badger, or something else entirely?

Here we should note that Dale had a look at them last night and wrote "Composite Kittycat tracks. Stepping in the same track makes the prints look bigger and with more toes. Last track in picture most accurate one of set." Time will, I hope, tell JD

ONE LEGGED SNOW-CASSOWARY STALKING THE WOODS AT POWLER'S PIECE

Yesterday I told you about Powler's Piece - the strange and rather creepy forest a couple of miles south of the village in which we live.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was working on the new book by Carl Portman (more of which soon), Corinna, Shosh and Gavin took Biggles for an afternoon stroll.

They were in another part of the woods to that where they found the snow dryad on Friday, and they had been looking for footprints.

Amongst the myriad of deer, dogs and smaller creatures was this.

WTF? (as I am sure my younger stepdaughter, and probably Max would say)

I know that it looks like the single print of a cassowary, or maybe a small dinosaur, but it obviously isn't. But what is it?

It is the fact that it is a single imprint in the snow that intrigues me. It probably isn't even a footprint. My best guess is that it is what happens when a bird of prey momentarily lands to capture some poor hapless rodent, but that is only a guess.

It is over to you guys and I, for one, am hoping that it is a giant, one-legged snow cassowary. If it is, then I propose the name Casuarius corinna-and-bigglesi. C'mon boys and girls, don't let a fat cryptozoologist's dreams fail to come true (again).

SNOW DRYAD?

Woolsery is a very strange place at times. About a mile and a half south of the village is an area of Forestry Commission woodland called Powler's Peice.

I have always liked it down there; there are deer a-plenty; both roe and red (and the occasional muntjac); and there are several small ponds that are chocker with palmated newts every spring. But it is undoubtedly freaky.

It has a very strange atmosphere, and Corinna has always refused to ever go there on her own. On several occasions when she has been walking the dog down there with the girls she has felt the sensation of "being watched" and the dog has stopped dead in his tracks in exactly the same place.

Yesterday afternoon she, Shosh and Gavin were taking the dog for his afternoon run (it is far too slippery for me to even risk it) and deep in the woods on one of the rides, traversed only by the occasional Forestry Commission worker and the most intrepid of dog walkers, she found a small, squat, and very ritualistic looking snowman. Or rather snow-woman, because her above-the-waist secondary sexual characteristics were clearly visible. It is only the lack of anything below the waist that stops me labelling her a snowy sheela-na-gig.

It is hard not to see her as a depiction of one of the tree spirits who guard the wood and make visitors feel so uncomfortable.

Very strange.

Even Biggles felt compelled to make several offerings to this snowy dryad (note the lower picture and the yellow stains on her right hand side in the upper).

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.

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.