BLOG POSTED BY Peter Clark,
NOTED CRYPTOZOOLOGIST
AND CO-AUTHOR OF
Remains Of Pangaea

Please expect a cover-up. If it isn't fear mongering or war profiteering, don't expect any real coverage on the six o'clock news. The truth is that in all likelihood there are several species of dinosaurs still living in various parts of the world. The storeowner's description of the animals responsible for yesterday's attack could easily refer to the Compsognathus or a number of other theropods. Many will swiftly dismiss any potential validity of living dinosaur theories, but the facts are simple.

Science suggests that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. Creationists, however, contend that the world is much younger and that dinosaurs have coexisted with man since the dawn of creation itself. Whether you believe that a cosmic being willed the universe into being or a non-sentient slip of nothing farted it all out, fossilized dinosaur bones have been discovered all over the world. They were here at some point.

Consider the "mythical" creature we know as the dragon. The history of the dragon is nearly universal throughout ancient cultures all over the world. I suppose the same unknowing accident that propelled all matter and existence into being must also be responsible for the unbelievable coincidence of the dragon mythos. How is it, pray tell, that societies worldwide depict this creature in countless media with such staggering uniformity without having seen them during their lifetimes?

"The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs], which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth." (Knox Wilson, "Dragon", The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, 1973, pg. 265.)

Life seems full of coincidences, does it not?

Credible history gives us many accounts of dragons outside of the world of folklore. The Historia Animalium, a zoological natural history text by Aristotle, mentions that dragons had become sparse but not extinct in the 1500s. Ulysses Aldrovandus carefully documented an encounter with a small dragon in northern Italy in 1572. Sightings of an African Pterosaur called The Kongamato ("breaker of boats") have been numerous. Reports of sightings as recently as the year 2000 suggest that a living Ceratopsia which the natives call the Ngoubou, dwells in the savanna region of Cameroon.

I expect that in the coming weeks, months and years this incident will join the "mythical" ranks of the Ngoubo, the Kongamato and the dragon itself. Let us not forget the Zuiyö Maru, a Japanese fishing trawler that hauled up a mysterious carcass off the coast of New Zealand in 1977. The creature looked strangely identical to a prehistoric Plesiosaur but was soon dismissed as the carcass of a basking shark despite its bearing little to no resemblance to a basking shark whatsoever. In the face of overwhelmingly convincing photographic evidence of the existence of living dinosaur-era creatures, the Zuiyö Maru monster joined the ranks of Bigfoot, Nessie, and Ogopogo.