Imagine a world where photography is still new and fresh. It’s been around a few years, but it’s just now getting into the hands of the masses.

There are no special effects, and of the few movies in existence, they’re all silent. The Wright brothers are still alive, and the world is embroiled in the first World War.

It was in this climate that two young girls, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffith, came forward to claim that they had seen and regularly spent time with living fairies. Not only that, but they had photographic proof.

By today’s standards, that sounds pretty absurd. Although people still may entertain the idea of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, fairies are squarely placed with leprechauns in the realm of reality.

But between 1917 and 1921, the fairies were all the rage. Although many quickly dismissed the photos as complete fakes, many defended them as genuine.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took a particular fascination with the girls and their fairies, risking his career to defend them.

Of the five photos taken, four were admitted to be hoaxes perpetrated by the girls using cardboard cut-outs.

The fifth photo, however, is wholly different in quality and substance.

No one has ever satisfactorily explained how the photo was taken, and the girls themselves are divided on what exactly they took a picture of in that cryptic photograph.

So do fairies exist? Probably not, but the Cottingly Fairies make for a interesting historical perspective on photography, gullibility, and the mindset of a world on the verge of a technological explosion.

No, it’s not an unfortunately named offspring of Doc Ock.

Apparently, a strange animal that appears to have the body of a squid and the tentacles of an octopus has been captured.

A truly new animal, a strange mutation, or some horrible cross-breeding experiment gone wrong?

• Octosquid Article

You decide!

Today we talk about a cryptid that is known to have existed.

Sometimes these make the most interesting cryptids because it’s a lot easier to believe that some extinct animal managed to survive than to believe that some animal exists that we’ve never seen.

Meet the Giant Penguin.

It’s actually been in the news lately, after researchers found fossils of a 5 foot tall penguin in South America.

Can you imagine a penguin that’s five feet tall?

The height of modern penguins is more like 1-2 feet tall, with extremely large penguins sometimes reaching 3 feet.

Although there is no argument that Giant Penguins once existed, there have been reports of modern day humans seeing giant penguins in the most bizarre places.

In 1948, there was a rash of Giant Penguin sightings in Clearwater Beach, Florida. Among the sightings were also reports of giant bird-like footprints in the sand.

The footprints were later proven to be a hoax (in 1988), but no one knows what people were seeing when they reported seeing the Giant Penguin in and near the water.

Among sightings was even Zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, who determined that it must be a Giant Penguin.

So do Giant Penguins really exist today? I’d say signs definitely point to no, but the good thing about a cryptid is that you never really know.

EDIT: Turns out that I was factually mistaken when describing modern penguins. The largest is actually the Emperor Penguin, which can reach 4′ in height.

If you ever have a topic you want to post about it, you probably shouldn’t save it. As many of you know, I run Cryptid Corner every Friday to talk about cryptids (and oftentimes just paranormal stuff).

I received a juicy tidbit from one of my friends about Lt. Walter Haut, an Army representative responsible for dealing with the press during the Roswell Incident.

Although he maintained the Army’s story his entire life, he recently passed away and left a signed affidavit that the Roswell crash was indeed extraterrestial and he saw the dead alien bodies.

It’s an interesting confession that you wouldn’t expect someone to make posthumously unless it were true. Lt. Haut certainly has nothing to gain by coming forward at this point.

Anyway, my rival friend, Rob, over at The Technonaut posted about this while I was saving it up for Cryptid Corner. He thinks he’s so clever.

EDIT: In poking around, I found this direct link to the full text of the affidavit. The affidavit begins about halfway down the page.

For our “family” vacation this year, the wife and I have already decided to pack up our bags and head off to Southern California for a quick visit to Blizzcon and then a week in beautiful San Diego.

If we weren’t doing that, though, I’d definitely hit up the 60th Anniversary Bash in Roswell, New Mexico.

That’s right. It was 60 years ago this July when Roswell was put on the map with strange reports of an alien crash landing, complete with bodies and otherwordly materials.

The Roswell Incident has become synonymous with UFOs and aliens, spawning tons of books, television shows, and even fun explanations.

The phenomenon has only grown over the years, with Roswell being tied to Area 51 and the Air Force desperately trying to release classified information to convince everyone that there was no extraterrestial crash on that fateful day in 1947.

Conspiracies die harder than John McClane.