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NEW MYSTERIES MAGAZINE - ISSUE #11 ON SALE NOW!

IN THIS ISSUE
Psychic Archaeology and the Glastonbury Scripts

Automatic Writing and the Fluid Pen of Patience Worth

The Enduring Enigma of the Hope Diamond

Kenny Kingston: Proving the Test of Time

Florida's Mysterious Coral Castle

- PLUS -
CIA Sculpture Continues to Baffle Cryptographers
UFOs: Creatures of the Sky?
Tests End Tut's Murder Mystery
Ontario, Canada's Haunted Cliff of Ekateniondi

~ And Now, On With The Show! ~

- EVERYTHING YOU DO WE'LL BE WATCHING YOU DEPARTMENT -

Is the Pentagon Spying on Americans?

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a ???threat??? and one of more than 1,500 ???suspicious incidents??? across the country over a recent 10-month period.

???This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,??? says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

???This is incredible,??? adds group member Rich Hersh. ???It's an example of paranoia by our government,??? he says. ???We're not doing anything illegal.???

The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.

???I think Americans should be concerned that the military, in fact, has reached too far,??? says NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin.

The Department of Defense declined repeated requests by NBC News for an interview. A spokesman said that all domestic intelligence information is ???properly collected??? and involves ???protection of Defense Department installations, interests and personnel.??? The military has always had a legitimate ???force protection??? mission inside the U.S. to protect its personnel and facilities from potential violence. But the Pentagon now collects domestic intelligence that goes beyond legitimate concerns about terrorism or protecting U.S. military installations, say critics.

The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One ???incident??? included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald??™s National Salute to America??™s Heroes ??” a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: ???US group exercising constitutional rights.??? Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense ??” yet they all remained in the database.

The DOD has strict guidelines, adopted in December 1982, that limit the extent to which they can collect and retain information on U.S. citizens.

Still, the DOD database includes at least 20 references to U.S. citizens or U.S. persons. Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One DOD briefing document stamped ???secret??? concludes: ???[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet,??? but no ???significant connection??? between incidents, such as ???reoccurring instigators at protests??? or ???vehicle descriptions.???

The increased monitoring disturbs some military observers.

???It means that they??™re actually collecting information about who??™s at those protests, the descriptions of vehicles at those protests,??? says Arkin. ???On the domestic level, this is unprecedented,??? he says. ???I think it's the beginning of enormous problems and enormous mischief for the military.???

Some former senior DOD intelligence officials share his concern. George Lotz, a 30-year career DOD official and former U.S. Air Force colonel, held the post of Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight from 1998 until his retirement last May. Lotz, who recently began a consulting business to help train and educate intelligence agencies and improve oversight of their collection process, believes some of the information the DOD has been collecting is not justified.

???Somebody needs to be monitoring to make sure they are just not going crazy and reporting things on U.S. citizens without any kind of reasoning or rationale,??? says Lotz. ???I demonstrated with Martin Luther King in 1963 in Washington,??? he says, ???and I certainly didn??™t want anybody putting my name on any kind of list. I wasn??™t any threat to the government,??? he adds.

The military??™s penchant for collecting domestic intelligence is disturbing ??” but familiar ??” to Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence officer.

???Some people never learn,??? he says. During the Vietnam War, Pyle blew the whistle on the Defense Department for monitoring and infiltrating anti-war and civil rights protests when he published an article in the Washington Monthly in January 1970.

The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens ??” many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S.

But Pyle, now a professor at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says some of the information in the database suggests the military may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes.

???The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The military made promises that it would not do this again,??? he says.

Some Pentagon observers worry that in the effort to thwart the next 9/11, the U.S. military is now collecting too much data, both undermining its own analysis efforts by forcing analysts to wade through a mountain of rubble in order to obtain potentially key nuggets of intelligence and entangling U.S. citizens in the U.S. military??™s expanding and quiet collection of domestic threat data.

Two years ago, the Defense Department directed a little known agency, Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, to establish and ???maintain a domestic law enforcement database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the Department of Defense.??? Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also established a new reporting mechanism known as a TALON or Threat and Local Observation Notice report. TALONs now provide ???non-validated domestic threat information??? from military units throughout the United States that are collected and retained in a CIFA database. The reports include details on potential surveillance of military bases, stolen vehicles, bomb threats and planned anti-war protests. In the program??™s first year, the agency received more than 5,000 TALON reports. The database obtained by NBC News is generated by Counterintelligence Field Activity.

CIFA is becoming the superpower of data mining within the U.S. national security community. Its ???operational and analytical records??? include ???reports of investigation, collection reports, statements of individuals, affidavits, correspondence, and other documentation pertaining to investigative or analytical efforts??? by the DOD and other U.S. government agencies to identify terrorist and other threats. Since March 2004, CIFA has awarded at least $33 million in contracts to corporate giants Lockheed Martin, Unisys Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation and Northrop Grumman to develop databases that comb through classified and unclassified government data, commercial information and Internet chatter to help sniff out terrorists, saboteurs and spies.

One of the CIFA-funded database projects being developed by Northrop Grumman and dubbed ???Person Search,??? is designed ???to provide comprehensive information about people of interest.??? It will include the ability to search government as well as commercial databases. Another project, ???The Insider Threat Initiative,??? intends to ???develop systems able to detect, mitigate and investigate insider threats,??? as well as the ability to ???identify and document normal and abnormal activities and ???behaviors,??™??? according to the Computer Sciences Corp. contract. A separate CIFA contract with a small Virginia-based defense contractor seeks to develop methods ???to track and monitor activities of suspect individuals.???

???The military has the right to protect its installations, and to protect its recruiting services,??? says Pyle. ???It does not have the right to maintain extensive files on lawful protests of their recruiting activities, or of their base activities,??? he argues.

Lotz agrees.

???The harm in my view is that these people ought to be allowed to demonstrate, to hold a banner, to peacefully assemble whether they agree or disagree with the government??™s policies,??? the former DOD intelligence official says.

'Slippery slope'
Bert Tussing, director of Homeland Defense and Security Issues at the U.S. Army War College and a former Marine, says ???there is very little that could justify the collection of domestic intelligence by the Unites States military. If we start going down this slippery slope it would be too easy to go back to a place we never want to see again,??? he says.

Some of the targets of the U.S. military??™s recent collection efforts say they have already gone too far.

???It's absolute paranoia ??” at the highest levels of our government,??? says Hersh of The Truth Project.

???I mean, we're based here at the Quaker Meeting House,??? says Truth Project member Marie Zwicker, ???and several of us are Quakers.???

The Defense Department refused to comment on how it obtained information on the Lake Worth meeting or why it considers a dozen or so anti-war activists a ???threat.???

Source: MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/

- SHUSH, NO TALKING IN THE LIBRARY DEPARTMENT -

FBI Frustrated by "Militant Librarians"

"While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from Office of Intelligence Policy and Review's failure to let us use the tools given to us"

Washington - Some agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been frustrated by what they see as the Justice Department's reluctance to let them demand records and to use other far-ranging investigative measures in terrorism cases, newly disclosed e-mail messages and internal documents show.

Publicly, the debate over the law known as the USA Patriot Act has focused on concerns from civil rights advocates that the F.B.I. has gained too much power to use expanded investigative tools to go on what could amount to fishing expeditions.

But the newly disclosed e-mail messages offer a competing view, showing that, privately, some F.B.I. agents have felt hamstrung by their inability to get approval for using new powers under the Patriot Act, which was passed weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

One internal F.B.I. message, sent in October 2003, criticized the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review at the Justice Department, which reviews and approves terrorist warrants, as regularly blocking requests from the F.B.I. to use a section of the antiterrorism law that gave the bureau broader authority to demand records from institutions like banks, Internet providers and libraries.

"While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from OIPR's failure to let us use the tools given to us," read the e-mail message, which was sent by an unidentified F.B.I. official. "This should be an OIPR priority!!!"

The bureau turned the e-mail messages over to the Electronic Privacy Information Center as part of a lawsuit brought by the group under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking material on the F.B.I.'s use of anti-terrorism powers. The group provided the material to The New York Times.

Congress is expected to vote early next week on a final plan for reauthorizing virtually all main parts of the law, including the F.B.I.'s broader power to demand records. President Bush, who has made renewal of the measure one of his top priorities, pushed again Saturday for Congress to act quickly.

"Since its passage after the attacks of September the 11, 2001, the Patriot Act has proved essential to fighting the war on terror and preventing our enemies from striking America again," Mr. Bush said in his radio address on Saturday.

While some Republicans and Democrats have attacked a brokered agreement reached Thursday because they said it does not go far enough in protecting civil liberties, the president hailed the agreement.

"Now Congress needs to finish the job," he said. "Both the Senate and the House need to hold a prompt vote, and send me a bill renewing the Patriot Act so I can sign it into law."

As part of the lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a federal court has ordered the F.B.I. to turn over 1,500 pages of material to the privacy information group every two weeks.

An earlier collection of F.B.I. documents, released by the group in October, showed numerous violations of internal procedure and sometimes federal law by the bureau in its handling of surveillance and investigative matters. In some cases, for instance, agents had extended surveillance operations and investigations for months without getting required approval from supervisors.

In the most recent batch of material, an F.B.I. memorandum sent in March 2004 said the process for getting the Justice Department to improve demands for business records would be "greatly improved" because of a change in procedure allowing the bureau to "bypass" the department's intelligence office, which normally reviews all such requests.

But officials at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. said they were unaware of any such change in procedure and that all bureau requests for business record were still reviewed and approved by the Justice Department.

A separate e-mail message, sent in May 2004 with the subject header "Miracles," mockingly celebrated the fact that the Justice Department had approved an F.B.I. request for records under the so-called library provision.

"We got our first business record order signed today!" the message said. "It only took two and a half years."

In its latest public accounting of its use of the library provision, which falls under Section 215 of the antiterrorism law, the Justice Department said in April that it had used the law 35 times since late 2003 to gain access to information on apartment leasing, driver's licenses, financial records and other data in intelligence investigations.

But the department has said that it had never used the provision to demand records from libraries or bookstores or to get information related to medical or gun records, areas that have prompted privacy concerns and protests from civil rights advocates, conservative libertarians and other critics of the law.

Michael Kortan, a spokesman for the F.B.I., said the frustrations expressed in the internal e-mail messages "are considered personal opinions in what employees believed to be private e-mails not intended for large, public dissemination."

Mr. Kortan added that "the frustration evident in these messages demonstrates that no matter how difficult or time-consuming the process, F.B.I. special agents are held to a very high standard in complying with the necessary procedures currently in place to protect civil liberties and constitutional rights when using the legal tools appropriate for national security investigations."

A senior official at the Justice Department, who was granted anonymity because many aspects of the antiterrorism law's use are classified, echoed that theme. "For all the hand-wringing over potential abuses of the Patriot Act, what these e-mails show is that it's still fairly difficult to use these tools."

But Marcia Hofmann, who leads the electronic privacy center's government section, said the e-mail messages "raise a lot of unanswered questions" about the F.B.I.'s use of Patriot Act powers and its relations with the Justice Department. Without fuller answers, Ms. Hofmann said, a reauthorization of the law by Congress "would seem premature."

Source: NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/nationalspecial3/11patriot.html?adxnnl=
1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1134396600-huYvmZHfeoOdBm4x069EdQ

- THE WANDERING POLES DEPARTMENT - Earth's North Magnetic Pole Could Shift to Siberia in 50 Years

Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting from North America at such a clip that it could end up in Siberia in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday.

Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth's fading magnetic field will collapse or that the magnetic poles will flip is remote. But the shift could mean that Alaska may no longer be able to see the high-altitude shimmering displays of colorful lights known as auroras.

Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and in rare cases, swap places. But exactly why this happens is a mystery.

"This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada," said Joseph Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University.

Results were presented Thursday at an American Geophysical Union meeting.

Previous studies have shown that the strength of the Earth's protective magnetic shield has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years. During the same period, the north magnetic pole wandered about 685 miles out into the Arctic, according to a new analysis by Stoner.

The rate of the magnetic pole's movement has increased in the last century compared to fairly steady movement in the previous four centuries, the Oregon researchers said.

At the present rate, the north magnetic pole could swing out of northern Canada into Siberia. If that happens, Alaska could lose its Northern Lights, which occur when charged particles streaming away from the sun interact with different gases in Earth's atmosphere.

Earth's magnetic poles are different from its geographic poles, which indicate the rotation axis around which it spins. The invisible magnetic field is formed by liquid, molten iron spinning in the Earth's core.

The north magnetic pole was first discovered in 1831 and when it was revisited in 1904, explorers found that the pole had moved 31 miles since it was first found.

Pole reversals are uncommon, happening at intervals of several hundred thousands years. The last time the poles flip-flopped was about 780,000 years ago.

In the study, Stoner examined the sediment record from several Arctic lakes.

Since the sediments record the Earth's magnetic field at the time, scientists used carbon dating to track changes in the magnetic field.

They found that the north magnetic field shifted significantly in the last thousand years. It generally migrated between northern Canada and Siberia, but it sometimes moved in other directions, too.

Source: SF Gate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/12/08/state/n125444S24.DTL&hw
=magnetic+pole&sn=002&sc=844

- THE UFO COV 76180/108053_ufofiles.jpg bold;">
Researcher Wants NASA 'UFO' Records

Researchers and witnesses who believe a UFO landed in the woods of western Pennsylvania 40 years ago are marking another anniversary on Friday: two years since a lawsuit was filed to get NASA to release records of what happened.

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman says there's no cover-up - the "UFO" was a Russian satellite, but government records documenting it have been lost.

Leslie Kean, an investigative reporter backed by the Sci Fi Channel, and a group connected to the cable TV station sued NASA two years ago under the Freedom of Information Act.

Kean wants files on what happened Dec. 9, 1965, in the unincorporated hamlet of Kecksburg, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Witnesses described a "fireball" in the evening sky, and a metallic, acorn-shaped object about 12 to 15 feet high and 8 to 12 feet in diameter that landed gently in the woods, according to media accounts at the time.

Kean's attorney Lee Helfrich said she'll file a new court motion on Friday seeking to "jump start" NASA's search for the information.

"NASA has been stonewalling for too long, and in the process has given us a great record to show that it's recalcitrant and acting in bad faith," Helfrich said. "What is NASA trying to hide?"

Nothing, NASA spokesman Dave Steitz said.

The object appeared to be a Russian satellite that re-entered the atmosphere and broke up. NASA experts studied fragments from the object, but records of what they found were lost in the 1990s, Steitz said.

"As a rule, we don't track UFOs. What we could do, and what we apparently did as experts in spacecraft in the 1960s, was to take a look at whatever it was and give our expert opinion," Steitz said. "We did that, we boxed (the case) up and that was the end of it. Unfortunately, the documents supporting those findings were misplaced."

Kean and Helfrich don't believe that explanation.

Kean said Nicholas L. Johnson, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris, determined the object couldn't be a Russian satellite or any other manmade object, after studying the orbital paths of known satellites and other records from 1965.

Johnson didn't immediately return calls for comment Thursday to his phone number listed on NASA's Web site. Steitz referred questions on Kean's claims to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, which didn't immediately comment.

Witnesses claim military personnel cordoned off the site, removed the object and threatened residents who questioned the incident. The military later called the object a meteor.

On Saturday, Kean, Helfrich and others connected to a Sci Fi Channel documentary will speak at the Kecksburg fire hall, where a mock-up of the object is on permanent display.

Kean said a pair of West Virginia University scientists who examined the reported landing site made two recent discoveries.

Forestry professor Ray Hicks counted tree rings and determined that trees in the area were damaged in 1965. Hicks, however, said the trees were likely damaged by ice, and then snapped off by the wind. He says his findings don't support Kean's claim that "something physically landed" at the site.

Geoarchaeologist J. Steven Kite says he found no evidence to support the high-speed impact of a meteor or other large object - which Kean says supports witness accounts that a spacecraft landed softly.

Source: Centre Daily
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/politics/13362506.htm

- LOOKING FOR A MIRACLE DEPARTMENT -
Weeping or Not, Statue of Mary is a Magnet

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Whether a statue of the Virgin Mary is crying or not, there is no denying the star power of the Madonna.

The mother of Jesus Christ made the cover of Time magazine earlier this year. Month after month, crowds journey to places around the world where the virgin mother is believed to have appeared.

"There is a tremendous appeal to Mary, and it is growing," said the Rev. James Murphy, rector of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, who noted that for centuries, great painters have made her a prominent subject.

In Sacramento County, an outdoor statue of Mary has become the center of attention at the humble Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church. Since late November, believers have come to view the statue, which has a red streak running from the corner of her left eye. A priest wiped the streak away Nov. 9, but when it reappeared Nov. 20, many viewed it as tears of blood being shed.

The "weeping Mary" has drawn crowds and national media attention.

No one has actually seen tears flowing. The Diocese of Sacramento has no current plans to investigate. Others consider it a common stain or possible hoax.

And still the people come.

They bring candles and flowers, bundled-up babies, and hearts filled with prayers and petitions.

"I believe it is a miracle," said Florence Champaco, 56, who has visited nearly every day since she first heard about the statue on television.

"I just come to pray," Champaco said, as she stood as close as she could to the fence line, about 10 feet from the statue.

According to author Joe Nickell, who wrote "Looking for a Miracle," the red streak is a hoax, but not without possible value. Such events often can draw believers and nonbelievers to the church.

"People are anxious to see something tangible," he said. "Rather than go to church and maybe hear a sermon, you could just go be near a miracle."

For Champaco, this was not the first time she'd sought a miracle. Fifteen years ago, she traveled to St. Dominic's Church in Colfax, about 50 miles northeast of Sacramento, to view what she and many others believed was an image of Mary. The phenomenon later was determined by a physics professor to be a reflection of sunlight.

Over the years, such sightings have been reported hundreds of times throughout the world. Sometimes the locations have been predictable, such as in stained-glass windows. Others have been bizarre, such as a Virgin Mary grilled-cheese sandwich that sold for $28,000 a year ago on eBay.

Most, Murphy said, can be explained by natural causes.

"The authentic ones are rare," he said, mentioning reported appearances by Mary in Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France. "The church is extremely careful."

In coming days, Catholics will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, another event considered authentic, Murphy said. The feast commemorates Mary's appearance to a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego in 1531. Her image is said to have appeared on his cloak.

From experts to plain folks, some have a believe-first mentality, while others are much harder to convince.

Thomas Haselrig, a cook, wanted proof before he would drive miles to see a weeping statue.

"Has anybody gone up to touch the statue to see what it is?" Haselrig asked.

But Maryvic McCann was ready to believe, even before seeing for herself.

"If it's a hoax, I really feel sad, but right now, I believe it's true," she said.

Among experts, many are doubtful.

Nickell, a senior research fellow for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, in New York, called the event a "clumsy, obvious hoax."

He cited the fact that nobody has seen blood flowing, the presence of "tears" from only one eye, and the location of "tears" on the outside of the eye.

He took issue with the church for not acting quickly to test the substance.

"If a statue is a fraud or a hoax, or even just a mistake, it should be determined and that should be that," Nickell said. "If it's a fake, then it should be repudiated."

Murphy, however, said it is too early to do such tests. "For now we're simply going to wait."

Lorraine Warren, a Connecticut investigator of paranormal events for over 50 years, admitted to a believe-first approach.

"Until you can disprove it, look at it as real," Warren said. "Miraculous things do happen, but you have to be careful."

When told about the Sacramento County statue, she asked careful questions. When did it start? Where was the statue? Who discovered it? How often does it cry?

She found it intriguing that the alleged appearance of tears came near the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

"I hope and pray to God that this is a miraculous thing," said Warren, who with her husband formed the New England Society for Psychic Research.

The desire for miracles runs deep within people, said the Rev. Michael Russo, professor in the Department of Communications at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, Calif.

"I think there is an enormous desire for some connection with the world around them that the creator exists and is good to them," Russo said.

Source: WOAI San Antonio
http://www.woai.com/news/weird_news/story.aspx?content_id=E0048C34
-C068-415D-969D-EFF1D8CA414A

- HIDDEN HORRORS OF THE JUNGLE DEPARTMENT - 76180/108052_mokelefootprint.jpg : bold;"> The Tracks of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé

The people around the Congo River Basin have a long oral history of their people and their lands. Among and intertwined with those stories are tales of a gigantic beast that lives in the swamps and rivers of the Congo. Generally it's a harmless beast, uninterested in eating people, and sticking to a type of liana that grows along the river. That isn't to say that it isn't dangerous; the tales say that the Mokèlé-mbèmbé will attack and sometimes kill people and hippos. Strangely, this area of the lowlands has an unusually low hippo population.

So the question arises: what exactly is the Mokèlé-mbèmbé? Simplest answer is that it is the Sasquatch of Africa. The name even means "one who stops the flow of rivers". There are crypozoologists in the world who would say that it/they are real living dinosaurs of the sauropod family still roaming the earth.

They are described as being bigger than a forest elephant with a long neck, a small snake-like or lizard-like head, which was decorated with a comb-like frill. They have a long, flexible tail, reddish-brown skin and four stubby, but powerful legs with clawed toes.

Not unlike Nessy of Lock Ness fame, Mokèlé-mbèmbé just aren't photogenic. There are some pictures that claim to have captured the image of such a creature, but as a rule they are too distant, too blurry, or too dark. Such obstacles are no deterrent to the determined. Expeditions to find the Mokèlé-mbèmbé have come home with photos of footprints and super-sized trails through the flora.

There is a long history of people encountering the Mokèlé-mbèmbé, including:

    * 1776 - French priest Abbé Lievain Bonaventure Proyart described the natural history of the Congo Basin of Africa. He wrote about a creature "which was not seen but which must have been monstrous: the marks of the claws were noted on the ground, and these formed a print about three feet in circumference.
    * 1909 - Naturalist Carl Hagenbeck recounted how two separate individuals: a German named Hans Schomburgh and an English hunter, told him about a "huge monster, half elephant, half dragon," which lived in the Congo swamps.
    * 1980 - An expedition mounted by engineer Herman Regusters and his wife Kia managed to make its way to Lake Tele, where they heard the growls and roars of an unknown creature. They also claimed to have photographed Mokèlé-mbèmbé in the lake, as well as watching it walk on land through the brush. According to Regusters, the creature they saw was 30-35 feet long.
    * 1983 - A Congolese expedition led by Marcellin Agnagna, a zoologist from the Brazzaville Zoo, arrived to Lake Tele. Agnagna claimed to have seen the beast some 275 meters out in the lake. The animal held its thin, reddish head - which had crocodile-looking, oval eyes and a thin nose - on a height of 90 cm and looked from side to side, almost as if it was watching him. According to Agnagna, the animal was a reptile, though not a crocodile, nor a python or a freshwater turtle.
    * 1987 - A piece of blurry video footage filmed by a Japanese film crew supposedly showing the creature in Lake Tele remains disputable evidence of the animal's existence. The film is indistinct and grainy, possibly just showing two men in a boat with one of them standing upright in the front of the vessel, as is common in Africa. This has been interpreted as a head and neck, but this interpretation of the videotape is purely speculative at best.
    * 2000 - Cameroon, Boumba River, Two Congolese security guards spotted a Mokèlé-mbèmbé in the water.

Though there is no conclusive evidence that the Mokèlé-mbèmbé are loitering in the lakes and swamps of the Congo, there are enough hints to make one wonder. Personally, I think it would be keen if such a monster were still out there. Improbable as it is that a beast of such dimension could elude being caught on film for so long, it isn't impossible. New species are still being cataloged in Africa??”and other parts of the world??”though none quite so big.

Source: Damn Interesting
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=257#more-257