Tuesday, August 17, 2010

If cryptozoology has taught us anything, it's that everyone else's imagination could turn out to have been making up something true. The screaming bird who shrieks in the nights in Sri Lanka turned out to be a very shy owl, and the oarfish was what turned out to be scaring sailors, creeping ribbon-like and sinister just under the surface of the water. Animals with two heads that hopped like frogs in the end were only kangaroos, and the only thing left related to a giraffe looks like a giraffe in the front and a zebra in the back. What we imagine is there turns out to be true just as often as it's not.

The other thing cryptozoology has taught us is that what is inside our head is generally significantly worse than anything nature can cook up. (With the exception of the honey badger. Those guys are legitimately pretty scary, although I am a fan of the African myth about how the honey badger and the pangolin each came to be, because pangolins are my favorite.) Which makes sense, in a way--if you're expecting the screaming in the woods to be an omen of impending doom, it would be a pretty big relief when it turns out to be only an owl with an unfortunate laugh.

Cryptozoologically speaking, Bigfoot probably doesn't understand why you keep refusing to go to the movies with him, and the Loch Ness Monster could really use some help keeping her floaties inflated.

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