Weird Weekend 2011

Cryptozoology is often affectionately dismissed as a quixotic hobby, but leading British cryptozoologists hope to bolster the subject’s credibility thanks to the weight of their recent discoveries, and the increased use of cutting-edge scientific techniques and rigorous methodology.

The intensive annual event of lectures and presentations that is Weird Weekend gave academics and cryptoenthusiasts the opportunity to learn, trade ideas, compare notes and drink beer. As well as this, Jon Downes – WW organiser and founder of the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) – revealed plans to release a peer-reviewed journal of cryptozoology; a world first in the field, showing that the crypto-community was finally ready to be subjected to the scrutiny of mainstream academia.

This pivotal moment for the CFZ is the culmination of 20 years of work by Jon and his colleagues, and he is pleased with their progress.

“I’m very, very proud, because I’ve been doing my best for the last 20 years to weed out some of the nut jobs, and I think we’ve got 90 per cent of the world’s best cryptozoologists under our belt,” he said. “The CFZ is a broad church, and very much community-orientated, but I’ve been trying to steer it for the last 20 years to a situation where cryptozoology is becoming a valid branch of zoology, rather than something akin to the Flat Earth society.”

It may be a significant boost for the CFZ, but starting a peer-reviewed cryptozoological journal is not the ultimate goal, as Downes told FT.

“For years I have resisted any pressure to start a peer-reviewed journal. I actually agree with Dr Charles Paxton, who says cryptozoology shouldn’t be trying to start its own peer-reviewed journal, it should be trying to have cryptozoologically-themed articles published in mainstream zoological journals.”

One report the CFZ deemed worthy of scientific attention was the search for the orang-pendek, due for coverage in the upcoming journal. Adam Davies, the History Channel adventurer who has hunted the ‘real Hobbit’ and the ‘Chinese Wildman’, presented the evidence he had collected so far for the undiscovered, upright-walking primate which is thought to live in Sumatra. The discovery of a new primate would cause huge waves in the zoological world.

Having visited Sumatra three times, finding hairs and footprints, and both hearing and seeing the elusive ape, Davies was cautiously optimistic that the team would find it when they set off to the jungle three weeks later.

There have been numerous sightings by locals, and the first hair samples, analysed in 2009 by Lars Thomas at Copenhagen University, were found to be structurally similar to, but distinct from, an orang-utan’s. Unfortunately, they were contaminated by foreign DNA; and while a photograph may be worth 1,000 words, DNA gives a definitive ‘yes’.

This time, two teams of five will be armed with 16 camera traps, hair traps, and a vast body of previous intelligence as to where the creature might hide out. Davies described the urgency of their quest and the tremendous ecological pressure on Sumatra from population growth and palm oil plantations.

“Even after all the scientific evidence I’ve got, this is still a fringe topic, and we might not have much time before the orang-pendek is extinct,” he said.

Ablaze with passion, he railed against nay-sayers who dared suggest the pendek was a nice excuse for a holiday. The jungle, he said, was a hellish place, with only fish heads and monkey balls to eat.

“We fund the whole trip ourselves, and we really suffer. I can’t think of anywhere I’d less like to be than the jungle – if it wasn’t for the orang-pendek.”

Speaking on the eve of departure (8 September) with the grim determination of a soldier before battle, CFZ zoological director and team member Richard Freeman said they were wellprepared and expected things to run to plan.

In another talk of scientific note, Bryan Sykes, celebrated Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, revealed the opening of a genetic database compiled from ‘crowd-sourced’ cryptozoological samples. Working in conjunction with Michel Sartori, director of the Museum of Zoology in Lausanne, Switzerland, any genuinely unrecognised DNA, taken from the wild, or from museum pieces, will be collected and archived for future research.

Professor Sykes also gave a lecture on his study into the seven mothers of almost all European people, published as The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001). Using the mitochondrial DNA passed down an unbroken maternal chain to every human being, Prof. Sykes claims to have detected the existence of seven women who lived between 11,000 and 50,000 years ago and were ancestors of 97 per cent of modern Europeans [FT139:12].

Having championed techniques to extract and replicate DNA from samples as old as 14,000 years, Prof. Sykes explained that there is a popular misconception that DNA always degrades very quickly after death.

“It’s the conditions of the preservation that are critical,” he said. “DNA survives well in bones and in teeth, particularly in alkaline environments such as limestone caves where the matrix of the bones is made of a similar mineral to the stone.The DNA doesn’t degrade because the acid stabilises in these environments.”

This sort of science opens up countless possibilities for cryptozoologists. Prof. Sykes is one academic anxious to integrate cryptozoology into the scientific canon. In an interview with FT, he described the requirements for crypto-research to achieve this status.

“It is vitally important that cryptozoology should enter the peer-review process,” he said, “and for that reason we need to embrace scientific methodology along with irrefutable DNA evidence.

“Having spent many years getting scientific articles published, and knowing how difficult it can be, even with uncontroversial subjects, I can see that to get articles on cryptids published is going to be difficult, but that’s not a bad idea. As Hume said [of miracles], ‘Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.’”

As part of Weird Weekend’s network, Prof. Sykes agreed to help study any DNA the Sumatra team might find and was able to give advice on how to ensure their findings would hold up.

“I’ve talked to Adam, Richard and Charles and I hope that I can offer advice about how, if they do find any organic remains, they must ensure that they are analysed by different laboratories, so that when the time comes to publish them, that will be an additional strength.”

It is this spirit of cooperation and support that Downes feels is so important for the future of the CFZ; working with university institutions and respected laboratories is crucial to their progress.

Dr Darren Naish and Max Blake gave a report on a stuffed lynx that can be dated to 1903 – making it the oldest modern lynx in Britain, and significantly predating the Dangerous Wild Animal Act of 1976, when a number of privately owned big cats were released into the wild rather than put down.

Naish and Blake are currently in the process of tracing the lynx’s exact origins using cutting-edge nuclear technology to analyse mineral isotope present in the cat’s bones.This pioneering technique was first used in a criminal investigation into voodoo murders in March this year; their report will be published in the first issue of the CFZ’s new peer-reviewed journal.

Their research hit the front page of the Western Morning News that Saturday, with the headline “Big Cats are still Living in West: Experts have DNA proof”. Over the course of the weekend, Downes was bombarded with calls from at least eight national and local papers; and in the month following Weird Weekend, there were more than 10 big cat sightings reported in the press.

Other presentations over the packed weekend included bug-breeder Nick Wadham on giant insects, and the limits thereof; intrepid journalist Matt Salusbury on the pygmy elephants of Kerala (FT252:42–47; 263:25); and John Hanson and Dawn Holloway on Haunted Skies, their continuing encyclopædia of over 40,000 UFO witness accounts spanning over 70 years.

But although the academic and media recognition is certainly encouraging, there is more to cryptozoology than science – GlenVaudrey’s talk on the folkloric origins of the Scottish water-horse was a case in point.

Downes agreed. “Cryptozoology is so important,” he insisted, “because it’s a portmanteau discipline which brings in zoology, folklore and mythology, sociology, and dozens of other things. I think the world needs more of this: because when you have a world run by specialists who don’t know anything outside their particular subject, you end up with a very peculiar world!”

One real triumph of Weird Weekend and the CFZ is the establishment of an enthusiastic, multigenerational community with a passion for every aspect of cryptozoology. Jon sits at the centre, gently coordinating his grand plan and enjoying every minute of it.

“I’m an old hippie who believes that all you need is love, and we should all work together and have a good time and make things good. Half the people here come and speak for nothing and we are the only conference in the world that has little boys and girls dressed up as aliens dancing to a Hawkwind song… these kids, who come in every year and draw those pictures of dragons, will be going on expeditions in 10 years time.

“What went wrong with previous organisations is that they didn’t think of the future, and nearly every fortean organisation in the past has not survived the death of its local founder. I want to make sure that this one goes on after I die.”

This is a time when many cryptozoological riddles are on the brink of being solved and new technology has made a wider range of DNA available for analysis; at the same time, Boris Worm, a biology professor at Canada’s Dalhousie University and Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii published claims in August that there could 8.8 million living species on Earth, of which only 1.2 million are properly described. It’s a study which throws up countless new questions; as a community, the Weird Weekenders appear to be thriving happily in their habitat.

Published in the Fortean Times.