Here's a 2022 film I missed until now - a unique one. It's shot as a documentary and played absolutely straight. It's the story of a fictitious Native American tribe and two cryptozoologists (a handsome man and a beautiful young woman, natch) trying to find and protect Willatuk. WIlliatuk is VERY loosely based on some Native American mythology, but created in its present form by the film's creator/director. Oliver Tuttle, a documentary writer and musician. in a song recorded in 2011). It's being pursued by vengeful, racist, and villainous fishermen: there's even psychological stuff about their family dynamics and abusive parenting. Many of the actors here don't even try to talk like real people. The filmmaker took some pains here, with plenty of mentions of cryptozoological lore and the creation of "true" old articles and sighting reports, which even have specific dates. One fisherman even dives into the water and SWIMS in pursuit of the creature, while a cryptozoologist shows off a device that - without even being submerged - can track the animal by the urea concentration of its urine. Congressman Jim McDermott, who represented this area until 2017, appears as himself. It's all narrated by no less than Graham Greene, whose voice lends this patchwork but certainly original film a gravity that its sometimes-silly sincerity ALMOST deserves.
The Ivory-billed woodpecker: Gone for Good?
The government is sure the IBW is extinct, and I'm almost certain they're right. I hold out maybe a 2% chance, based on a few of the sighting reports but mostly sheer romantic stubbornness about America's largest, most spectacular woodpecker.
A Vanished Bird Might Live on, or Not...
Now, it seems, we have two birds in the bush but still need one in the hand, because experts are giving this new video very different ratings as evidence. Most are skeptical. They are probably right. Probably. It's an interesting case for cryptozoology, We have an extinct animal, in a known habitat, with a collection of sightings and a few videos, none of it providing the certainty we all crave. We know other birds have been declared extinct and rediscovered, including the flightless takahe and the cahow (lost for 300 years!) Even given the prevalence of cellphone cameras, the IBW habitat is still very big and not often penetrated in some areas,
If we don't know it exists, well, it has a better chance than Bigfoot.
This is an interesting source I've overlooked. Cryptids, in general, are cryptids because there's no enough evidence to establish their existence. There are some bits of evidence that definitely or probably existed, but no one can lay hands on them. This list includes seven specimens and four photos, although one (the alleged Thunderbird photo in the Tombstone newspaper) is certainly not real, as the newspaper archives still exist. There are other cases, but the author notes this article is still under construction. I'll put some together for a later posting. I immediately thought of a couple: a scale identified by one ichthyologist as an American coelacanth, now lost; a sea serpent head, which contemporary documents describe as being on board the whaler Monongahela when it sank in the 1850s.
The cryptozoologist who goes by the online name TruthIsScarier has made a more comprehensive list, which is must-viewing. See this graphic. It includes specimen, photos videos, audios, and written reports. A few of these are labeled as known hoaxes, but it sure would be nice if the others surfaced. Good luck and good hunting!
Matt Bille is a writer, historian, and naturalist living in Colorado Springs. He can be reached at mattsciwriter@protonmail.com. Website: www.mattbilleauthor.com.
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