Mythunderstood: Magical Monsters Debunked

d o o t s r

e d n u th

My

rs e t s n o m al c i d g e a k m n u b de

This month’s featured creatures...

Unicorns, Selkies, & Nessie 4 Chupacabra 5 Yeti

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table of contents

photos taken from cryptidz.wikia.com and syfy.com

Scotland Legends pg. 4

Ye lasies and lads, take a trip through our efforts to chase and uncover the mysterious legends in Scotland.

Chupacabra pg. 5

Is Central Latin America being tormented by a vampire or a mutant beast? We examine the evidence to uncover the truth.

Yeti

pg. 6

The Himalayan Mountains in Tibet have been haunted for centuries by legends of the Yeti... or has Western Culture actually created the monster?

Quiz

pg. 7

Put yourself to the test!

Find out what mythological creature featured in this issue fits your personality!

cover photo taken from picturespool.blogspot.com

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d o o t s r e d n u h t y M

behind the scenes of the black box

What we stand for...

To inform and include the reader in the current debates concerning

the historical view of mythological creatures and how the geographical setting and culture of the people in these regions has characterized the creature’s creation.

What we’re about...

Mythunderstood is a scientific discovery magazine that takes a deeper look into the supposed mythological animals that roam the world. Our literary publication is angled to fit the specific interests of the age-limitless and all inclusive science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts, Cryptozoologists, and believers of the unknown.

Our production staff is comprised of science fiction and fantasy lovers that are dedicated to exploring the mysteries of mythological creatures.The motivation of our team is driven by our desire to uncover the mysteries of the unknown and to satisfy the public’s growing hunger for fantastic beasts from the fantasy realm. Our publication’s purpose is to inspire our readers to consider factual historical evidence supporting the existence of these creatures and to encourage our readers to constantly question the possibilities of the existence of magical life in our modern world.

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Legions of Scotland By: Shelby Miller

photo taken from didyouknow.org

Unicorns, Selkies, and Nessie, oh my! These three cryptic creatures, along with a plethora of others, have all called Scotland home since the first century A.D. Scotland has a knack and history for mythical pets and even decided to name the unicorn as their national animal, an easy pick noting that the unicorn was their heraldic symbol since the 12th century and even appears on their coat of arms.

The stories of these beasts seem more like mythical nursery rhymes than evidencebased discoveries, but in Scotland these stores take up more than a tourist attraction. But what is the real story behind them? Well, I am here to tell you what you should know about these mystical beasts, and maybe even to convince those few who call themselves non-believers.

Unicorns have had a long history with Scotland, and even longer with other parts of the world. Early Babylonians in the first century AD and their tales of chivalry alongside unicorns have been passed down through generations. General knowledge states that unicorns can only be tamed or ridden by the purest of heart, many times this meaning a virgin maiden, therefore making a connection between the Virgin Mary and further to Jesus Christ. Writings on the unicorn have even been recorded in the Hebrew Old Testament, thus sealing the evidence for many believers. The evidence of the creatures did not come along until many years later in 1663 when Otto von Guericke-a famous scientist- discovered the remains of one.

Although much of the early tourism of the exhibit ended in unofficial and damaging souvenirs of the artifact, much is still intact and located in Osnabrück, Germany.

Remaining somewhat quiet in the news for many years, the unicorn has finally resurfaced and was brought into the light, but not in Scotland. In North Korea in 2012, a small opening in a cave with the words “unicorn lair” was discovered under Kim-Jong-Il before his death a year later.

This cave is still being excavated and has brought in a new generation of cryptozoologists.

Unicorns are not the only cryptids that calls Sotland home. One of the oldest cryptid, the Selkie, originates in Scotland legends and mythology. In the 18th and 19th century many claimed these creatures were fallen angels meant to stay animalistic until judgment day. A Selkie, for those rusty of Celtic mythology, is a creature that takes seal form in the water but sheds its skin and reveals a human body on land. The stories usually coincide with a fisherman taking a Selkie female and forcing marriage onto it by hiding or burning its discarded skin. Although the evidence of these lies only in peculiar discarded seal skins, the legends are still alive and being told throughout Scotland, at one point even invading the shores of Great Britain. And even though there is only a small population of Selkie believers

these explanations have been proven and even more stories and pictures have been popping up all through Scotland, including several other Scottish lakes.

The reason for Nessie’s movement can be explained with the story of the Spicer couple a few weeks after Campbell’s initial discovery. The couple recoded a large peculiar animal with a long neck walking in front of their car. Although it has never been proven, none of these above stories have ever been fully disproven, thus keeping the story of the Loch Ness Monster alive for at least another decade.

So why do these stories exist at all, and why can they not be disproven?

The answer to that is not simple, but lies within human nature itself. We want to believe that there are things out there that link us together with a higher power, discovery is a sign of humanity and I as a human tend to keep an open mind and use common sense when understanding these Scottish stories of unicorns, selkies, and the Loch Ness Monster. The evidence is there weather or not it is believed by everyone is understandable but also unsatisfactory. These cryptids need to be cared for and supported for years to come. They rely on our compassion, are you going to let Nessie and Scotland down?

around the world, the number grows with each unexplained disappearance or carcass.

Getting back in the water, we jump to the most famous Scottish cryptid that every year brings worldwide believers and sceptics to the foggy Loch Ness.

This is one of the newest cryptids, only have been brought into attention in 1933 by Alex Campbell.

Named the Loch Ness Monster, or more affectionately, ‘Nessie’ has been the subject of many books and movies since the first picture, often referred to as the ‘Surgeons photo’ was taken in 1934. Before this time, there have been numerous historical recordings of a monster in Loch Ness dating back to the 6th century when Saint Columba was seen warding off a monster in the River Ness with the sign of the cross and the Holy words of God. Since the first encounter there were no more famous sightings until 1933, however, when the story got out it was under a lot of criticism and several explanations rose out of the publicity. With the photo it is said to be either a large chunk of wood, a toy submarine, or even an elephant’s trunk. However, none of

artwork taken from athasrevolution.wordpress.com

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El Chupacabra By: Collin Groves

El Chupacabra, described as a creature with a “reptilian body, oval head, bulging red eyes, fanged teeth and long, darting tongue,” sounds like an ideal creepy beast straight out of a Syfy movie.

It has many different identities throughout Latin America but it is predominantly seen as a dog-like beast weighing around 20 to 40 pounds. Originating in Latin America and first appearing in the late 1960s, the Chupacabra has become quite the cryptozoological phenomenon of the past decade with the increase of attacks in the mid-90s.

As recent as October of 1999, Brazil’s Corriero Braziliense newspaper reported eight goats and three sheep dying of single puncture wounds to the neck and drained of their blood. These wounds to the neck bring up the thoughts of “vampires,” who kill their prey with a single decisive strike to the neck region where it then precedes to suck the blood from the victim until the life is literally sucked out of it. No meat was taken, only a small bite to the neck was apparent. This same scenario has happened time and time again throughout Latin America as far south as Chile.

Though no pictures of the assailant itself exist, there are hundreds of documented pictures of the dead animals. The mystery behind these odd animal fatalities is one that sparks the inner imagination of many people around the world. Who is the creature to blame for all these murders across Latin America?

The winter of 1995 in Puerto Rico is one that will live in infamy.

Around a dozen reports of Chupacabra attacks spurred up quickly in numerous towns. In Orocovis, there was the sight of a sheep massacre in which the farmer found eight sheep completely drained of blood, each baring puncture wounds. In Canovanas, hundreds of livestock deaths occurred in the “stereotypical Chupacabra fashion.” The mayor went as far as asking for volunteers to hunt every week for the creature. Efforts were kept for a year with no luck. In the town of Guanica, a middle aged woman claimed to have been grabbed and attacked from a gorilla from behind, though Puerto Rico has no gorillas. The woman suffered only from minor scratches around her torso but what was to come after this documented attack is what

was really frightening to the community.

After the attack, chickens and cows died nearby of single wounds to the neck, the blood simply gone. What could be used to explain these mysterious deaths around Puerto Rico, especially the manner in which these creatures were killed other than the Chupacabra? With each passing attack and eyewitness statements, the Chupacabra is becoming the most prominent suspect for these random murders.

Once thought to be a creature that lurked the lands of Latin America, Chupacabra sightings are becoming more and more prevalent in the United States.

69 chickens, goats and ducks were found dead on a Florida lawn, again with their blood drained. Michigan and Oregon suffered subsequent attacks as well and this is beginning to become a topic of conversation for cryptozoologists and those who fantasize about the unknown creatures that roam this Earth alongside us. Some students of one of the top Ivy schools in the nation, Princeton University, went as far as creating “The Chupacabra Home Page” with their spare time. This website includes a timeline of Chupacabra sightings, Government cover-up theories, global phenomenon’s on the Chupacabra, and much more.

Accusations about the “creation” of the Chupacabra have been made by

Chilean radio programs that NASA created the Chupacabra in a lab while conducting genetic tests in the Chilean desert on mandrills. Rumor has it that Chilean military officials found 3 Chupacabra eggs and that they even caught the animal. These eggs and the animal itself are said to have been turned over to NASA though NASA denies these charges stating that NASA is always being blamed for mysterious things like this because the space agency is the last place anyone in Chile would think to call and ask about it.

The Chupacabra has played a major role in the stories and culture of creatures of Latin America. Appearing only as early as the 1960s, the Chupacabra has made quite the impact on the people of Latin America and is starting to become more of a trend in the United States with each passing year. Whether this creature gives the people of Latin America, as well as people across the world, one more cryptid to fathom about, the Chupacabra has really raised the question of, what is roaming these vast lands and oceans that we live on and near? How do you explain these mysterious, odd deaths of animals and people? There is so much of our world that we have yet to uncover and what is saying that creatures such as these have no possible chance of living in the shadows of our new world? artwork taken from relkavin.deviantart.com

photo taken from squidoo.com

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Myth of the Mountains: The Himalayan Horror By: Cassi Ott

There is a legend that haunts the Himalayan Mountains in Tibet. Stretching thousands of feet tall, standing bipedal on its hind legs, covered in thick white fur, the monster wanders the mountains and forest surrounding the villages of Tibet. With a whistle, screech, and deafening howl, the Yeti lifts a rock from the mountain side and propels it with a heft of its bulging muscles warning off undesired predators.

The bone-chilling, blood-curdling legends of the Yeti have entered Western culture as bonfire stories designed to frighten young children, but remain an everyday horror for the people who call the Himalayan Mountains home.

The creature’s existence dates back to pre-Buddhist beliefs of members of the Lepcha tribe indigenous to eastern Nepal. The exact year of the cryptid’s conception is difficult to trace back, yet over time the people inhabiting the Himalayan Mountain range continued to develop and search for the beast. In 1899, the once legends of the beast that roamed the mountains became a living nightmare when researcher Laurence Waddell and his Tibetan tour guide came across large footprints found in the snow that obviously belong to something much too large to be the expected human or a bear. As the nineteenth century faded into the twentieth century more occurrences of sightings of Yeti evidence arose. As Westerners started setting out to explore the Himalayan Mountains, strange sightings began to occur. The first ever documented sighting of a humanoid, ape-like creature, standing thousands of feet tall was recorded by a Greek photographer and geologist, N. A. Tombazi, in 1925. Not much later in 1950 British photographer, Eric Shipton, captured evidence of large footprints on the mountains side while climbing Mount Everest. After the photograph was released to the media the public’s interest in the Yeti exploded in popularity and the hunt to find the Yeti began with a rocketing start.

There were numerous witness reports of researchers experiencing strange sightings of unknown species while in the Himalayan region, but nothing changed the

photo taken from icimod.org

search for the Yeti as dramatically as the discovery of an unknown feces collection found by American, Tom Slick. American researchers discovered within the specimen an unknown specie of parasite.

Well known Cryptozoologist of the time Bernard Heuvelmans stated in a journal “Since each animal has its own parasites, this indicated that the host animal is equally an unknown animal.” Sending chills down the spine of every researcher and Yeti believer the United States Government stepped forward and proposed three new laws pertaining to the search for the Yeti, which stated, “first obtain a Napalese permit, do not harm the Yeti, and lastly let the Napalese government approve any news reporting on the animal’s discovery.”

While after the excitement of the United States Government’s release statement the search for the Yeti and numerous sightings and evidence of footprints were reported nothing substantial changed the name of the game in the hunt for the monster. It wasn’t until recently that substantial, new evidence supporting the Yeti’s existence arose and sent a buzz humming in the media, bringing the Yeti back to the forefront of the science fiction media. In 2013, two unidentified animals were discovered in the Himalayan Mountain range, their hair was collected and examined by Professor Bryan Sykes, a British geneticist at the University of Oxford. Professor Sykes discovered that the DNA of the hair specimens showed a 100% genetic match to DNA of a polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway that dates at least 40,000 years old. Professor Sykes believes that the unknown specie of animal is a hybrid between a brown bear and a polar bear. Although this doesn’t completely confirm that this unknown creature is the present day Yeti, this scientific evidence is now a possible reasoning for what researchers and Tibetan people are seeing in the forest and mountain side, a large hybrid bear. Although the news is disappointing to the legends associated with the notorious Yeti, the reasoning at least somewhat clears up the mysteries associated with whatever creature has been spotted in

the Himalayan Mountains after all these years.

While researching the history and present known evidence supporting the existence of the Yeti, there was a reoccurring subject of evidence that almost all of the documentations contained. I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the proof supporting the existence of the Yeti had been collected and reported by Western cultured scientists and researchers, mostly reigning from the United States and Great Britain. The next question that I found myself asking made me curious and question that validity of the evidence found. All of the research and evidence being supported

by Western culture made me question if the legend of the Yeti is a Western culture conceptualized creature or if, as history tells us, the Yeti is actual folklore of the Tibetan mountain people. I couldn’t find an answer to the question in the Western culture documentations, and I couldn’t find an individual asking the same question as myself. Still the mystery goes on, the questions are ceaseless, and there continues to be a question of credibility surrounding the documentations supporting the monster of the mountains.

There are so many questions that seem to drown us, only pulling us deeper and deeper into the vast unknown.

Sightings arise, footprints fill the snow, hairs are collected, undistinguishable corpses are discovered, feces are found, and everything is tested and examined until we’re blue in the face and only just as confused as when the studies began.

While this newly discovered evidence of the supposed Yeti being a hybrid and relative to brown bears and polar bears somewhat puts our fearful hearts to rest, the questions, the unknown possibilities, and the legendary mysteries live on. Only one thing remains certain, if you ever find yourself ascending the summit of the Himalayan Mountains do not enter alone and do not enter with a weak heart, for evidence supports that something wild and unknown still treads through the snow, is armed, and most likely dangerous. artwork taken from bpb-art.com

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Quiz yourself

Cryptic Craze! where would you call home?

Beach front property

A ranch on the range

Cabin in the mountains

what’s your favorite snack?

Favorite 80’s song?

“Another one bites the dust” -Queen

Lamb burgers

“Call Me” -Blondie

Salads and veggies

Your Favorite activity is...

“Funkytown” -Lipps Inc.

Swimming Mountainclimbing

Chupacabra

You have a free untamable spirit! You go by your own rules, reckhavock, and enjoy being the feared beast of the desert just like the Chupacabra.

Yeti

You enjoy a solitary life on your own in a peaceful place and when your home is invaded you tend to get a little... upset. Your versitile and complex remaining a mystery which makes you like the Yeti.

Loch ness Monster

You are easy going and peaceful. You are happy most in a place where you can hide yourself enough to remain chased after just like Nessie.

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Our Sources Scotland Legends

Chupacabra pg. 5

pg. 4

http://www.scottish-at-heart.com/

http://www.animalplanet.com/

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/30/

http://www.chupi.iwarp.com/

http://www.unicorns.co.za/

http://www.relkavin.deviantart.com/

http://didyouknow.org/animals/nessie/

http://www.squidoo.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie

Yeti

pg. 6

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ http://school.discoveryeducation.com http://www.animalplanet.com http://www.livescience.com/ http://www.icimod.org