In the world of cryptozoology, Mothman and the Jersey Devils are two of the most sci-fi-like cryptids out there. What exactly are they? Aliens? Demons? Some other supernatural creature? It's one of the reasons I used both of them for the villians in my book "Dark Wings." Another is just my fascination with these creatures, especially the Jersey Devil. I grew up in New Jersey. I heard all sorts of stories about the Jersey Devil. One reported sighting took place at Kuser Park in Hamilton Township, just a few miles from the where I used to live.
So given all the alleged sightings of these two monsters over the years, given the fact I wrote about them in my new book, I have a feeling some of you out there are asking, "John, do you actually believe in creatures like this?"
My answer is yes AND no.
Now how can that be, you ask?
Well, for most of these cryptids, I do tend to lean more to the believer side than the non-believer side. I can't become a 100 percent believer until someone actually brings forth physical proof. Not a strand of hair, not a footprint, not some dark hump that someone photographs in a lake and says that's the Loch Ness Monster or the Lake Champlain Monster. I mean they actually capture a live specimen or they come across a body.
That makes me sound like more of a skeptic, doesn't it? So wny would I say I lean more toward the believer side than non-believer side? Maybe part of it is, being a science fiction writer, I love the idea that apemen, dinosaurs, et al might actually exist. Though that's more hope than belief. But when I look at the lengthy list of cryptid sightings over the centuries, when people collect samples like footprints or hair, when photographs and videos surface of these things, it makes me say, "Maybe there is something to this."
Granted, a lot of photos and videos are faked, and many eyewitness accounts can just be known animals that are misidentified or outright lies. Now what about the rest of them? Some of these eyewtiness accounts have come from reputable people, such as law enforcement officers. Some of them have given their accounts while hooked up to a polygraph, and passed! Then there's the one piece of video evidence that pushes me toward the believer side, at least for one crytid. The 1967 Roger Patterson film of Bigfoot. It clearly shows a large, ape-like creature walking along a treeline before heading into the woods in Northern California. I have seen several documentaries about this film, all of which attempted a variety of methods to see if it could be faked. What they found was the creature's gait and movements could not have been done by a person in a costume!
That's a pretty good piece of evidence to me, better than the Moon landing conspiracy nuts who point to an astronaut's shadow or how the American flag looks and go, "See! See! They faked it!" Still, it's just another piece of the cryptozoological puzzle, not absolute proof.
Will we ever find proof that creatures like Mothman, The Jersey Devil, Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster truly exist? Well, gorillas were thought to be mythical creatures until the mid-19th Century. The Coelacanth, a prehistoric fish, was thought to have been extinct for millions of years until a live specimen was caught off the South African coast in 1938. Between 1999-2009, more than 1,200 new animal and insect species were discovered just in the Amazon rainforest. Even in this world of instant communication, Google Maps and a population of 6 billion people, there are still many parts of this planet that have barely been explored by humans. Who knows what fantastic creatures may live in those places?
Until they're discovered, they will provide a great source of story ideas for writers like me.
"Dark Wings" is available at www.amazon.com/Dark-Wings-Mr-John-Rus... and as an ebook at www.smashwords.com/books/view/102426 .