Mokele-mbembe (Dinosaur in africa)

I actually met the scientist who went into africa looking for this thing (the villian in the movie someone mentioned above was actually based on him). I forget his name... but he worked out of the University of Chicago and was legitimate. The best evidence they found was just a hoofprint, unfortunately.

His story, though, was interesting just as raw travelogue. His team went DEEP into the African interior. They had to negotiate with warlords, go down canals that were narrow and filled with dangeous snakes, skate by big cats... and all sorts of other stuff.

Oh, and he wasn't evil like the old scientist in the movie. After Disney bought his story they blew things out of proportion (obviously).

Edit: it just came to me. His name is Dr. Roy Mackel.

[edit on 6-5-2005 by onlyinmydreams]

While often used by creationists, many such artifacts are in accredited museums and authenticated. My point being it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Unearthed fossils may very well have inspired some of the art, but some depictions have pretty detailed musculature, etc. for just guesswork. Just because an animal used as a design element is repeated, doesn't mean it depicts herds . The aboriginal painting with the apparent depiction of the digestive tract is certainly intriguing.

However, I was providing the images more as a curiousity than evidence of such an idea...but we have found things before that were thought to be exinct for millions of years, and not always small things...

Since evolution doesn't stop, those animals should NOT be looking like carbon copies of 65 million year old dinosaurs. Either coincidence, or the sources telling you they've been authenticated might not be telling the truth

The Ceolocanth hadn't changed...and even some modern animals haven't really adapted all that much, such as crocodiles, sharks, etc. I would suspect that IF such a creature as mokele-mbembe existed, it's much like those pygmy elephants, and evolved only to be smaller in size....

Crocodiles and ceolocanths were the same when the dinosaurs were around. They just got it right the first time.

Dinosaurs, on the other hand, were constantly evolving. Add in a radical change in environment all over the world, and evolution is almost a given. Especially since creature such as diplocoduc, apatosaurus and brachiosauris were considered to be grazers, there's not a whole lot of open grazing ground in the swamps and jungles. If a dinosaur survived, it would most likely have evolved. How much we can't say, but I don't think the scientists who showed the orignal natives pictures of beings extinct for tens of millions of years did us any good.

Gotta think, a bunch of apaprently intelligent men come into your village, ask you about the monster, then show you different pictures and ask if that's what it is. You pick out several, calling them mkele mbembe. Then they tell you that really weird looking one with the long neck actually existed at one point and get very excited when you talk about. So of course you'll assume that really is mkele mbembe. You tell the neighboring tribes, produce some sketches, and soon everyone is talking about a monster that doesn't exist.

Not totally unprecedented in history.

We can agree on that.


Such as?


Sauropds of the sort depicted, however, did agregate in herds.


Notice that its represented on a site that is also fraudulently claiming that the Zuiyo-Maru trawled up a plesiosaur. Also, the account about that particular item is from a Creationist Research Journal, the "CEN Technical Journal".

But, regardless, think of a komodo dragon, it conforms to many of the depictions. Indeed, most of them are little more than lizards with long necks, sometimes flippers. We often find fantastic animals depicted in ancient carvings, etc. There's no more reason to think that that is a plesiosaur than to think that anubis statues indicate that there were guys who had giant dog heads running around.


But dinosaurs? From 65 million years ago? A fish that lives in extremely deep waters, ok. A type of deer or rabbit in the jungles of east asia, ok.
But dinosaurs? Beleive me, I'd love it, but there's not really any evidenceof it. The pictures are intersesting, but ultimately uninformative.

Technically, the modern animal is in a different genus, its changed, just not significantly. I mean, a modern crocodile ins't a carbon copy of the crocodiles from 80 million years ago, but they're both something Steve Irwin would be tempted to jump on.

helo there have been hidden animals found like the okapi and there are stories of other large animals like there has been sightings of giant slophs somewhere but i cant remember where and there have been dragons bigfoot ect.

P.S how do u edit ur name thingy

[edit on 12-5-2005 by Shenroon]

Sure they can stumble on some new breed of mushrooms in the forrest. Most people wouldnt know one from the other. Maybe find some woodpecker we thougt was gone. But a friggin dinosaur? Please. There would be more than one, and someone would have found it.

We have the best tracking technology now. Someone would have this thing on tape. Show me one pic or video, and I might think otherwise.

I can imagine that some Pleisiousaurus still can be more or less the same as theire cold blooded but Dinosaurs evolved very fast. They evolve just as fast as current warm blooded mammals or birds. That brings me too this. Are there any species of mammals which are 10 million year old or so? Not very much just as with the dinosaurs. The average length of a Ceratops was 5 million years before they got extinct. Most reptiles can last 30 million years. 30 million years is about the longest i have seen for dinosaur species surving like the Allosaurs and Coelophesis.

physiology, in terms of cold blooded hot blooded, probably doesn't have too much to do with the rate of evolution. I'd think that a plesiosaur and sauropod, surviving the extinction, would both have the same potential for change. Organisms change as the environment dictates, to an extent. Thats why sharks haven't changed much, because they are 'specialized' and 'perfected', and change in any direction is going to be detrimental.
Also, keep in mind that 'Allosaurus' and such aren't species, but are genera, and possibly some of the things we only have fossils for and consider to be in the same genera might, if alive, be placed in different genera. So we are probably 'missing' a lot of evolution in the fossil record (just considering the stuff we have, not the stuff we don't physically have and can't examine).

Can i just ask where the sauropd was described as being huge wot if it was like a fisherman 'it was that big' but in reality they're really small. Then they could go unnoticed apart from the natives who see them from time 2 time
And yes we have tracking equipment but u cant find a sub in the atlantic if there isnt any equipment there

On the contrary, I'm glad you corrected me on that. This way I won't embarrass my self by using that later in my life. I guess I'll have to do more research about such things before using them. This little incident has taught me not to take things at face value, so I'll have to do a little research on what you said about it being proven wrong.

The 'dastardly' thing about that argument is that its so intuitive, I mean, if it were true, it'd just make so much sense. I think that that is why its still around, because its so plausible and sensible.

I remember back in the late 70's and early 80's there was a t.v. show called "That's Incredible". An explorer searching for this rumored thing had come on the show to show footage of this creature. He had set up his cameras filming in different directions and left them running when he slept. He never saw any evidence of the Mokele-mbembe and when home empty handed. While eating dinner he watched his films of when he was sleeping. To his astonish he saw something truly "INCREDIBLE". He made copies of the video in regular, zoomed in and SUPER zoomed in. It showed a head and partial neck of what i believed at the time was a Brontosaurus. It slowly arose out of the Congo river, turn it's head to the left, open it's mouth - water dripped out and then went back under water.

As i got older i always thought if it wasn't a Dinosaur then what could it be? A log perhaps - NO, it wasn't moving down stream with the current. The base of the neck never moved from the incredible current of the Congo River except when the whole thing submerged straight down. Something had to have had a massive base to it, have a footing to the bottom of the river itself. So, the sceptic in me thought it could have been an elephant. Elephants are in the area and it's trunk could be misinterpreted as a neck and head of a dinosaur. However, i don't believe an elephant, although very large and powerful could submerge all the way to the center of the Congo River and still not be carried away in it.

I believe in this Cryptid and just a VERY small handful of others. I need more than tales an eye witness reports to convince me. Since i first saw that footage i've only run into 2 people who've seen it as well and i cannot find this footage anywhere on the internet. I'm beginning to suspect some kind of cover-up to protect the creature from hunters. Does ANYONE know of any web site that has that footage so that i can judge for myself once again? Thanks.

I found a more recent article that says when flying over the congo some Japanese student caught a very large object moving on tape walking through the water.

Congo dinasaur


-Aza

war is no sollution......war of anykind here will eventually cause the world to involve. here its between good n evil,right wrong,winner-looser,believer-disbeliever, "eternity together" vs "betrayed forever". its not any country anymore, not abt mericans ,armans, ussians or sians nor yewish nor uslims nemore, not any physical property to fight nemore for . its abt good vs evil. its simple but the most complex at the same time.

ww2 the innocent enlightened(u know whom im talking abt, im 1 of these pep) ones got killed, in ww3 it has to be uslims.....( im 1 of them 2)after that, nothings stopping him from putting gps chip in our head(may b not us but our grand children will) , burning all the 4 real books, believe in only tomorrow, n follow the 1 who has a remote. After that nothing is stopping this another power from taking all the land from beyond our feet.

y does the system banned mild drugs (natural ones) saying that they are gateway to the worse ones where those who love it eventually change their lifestyle to get it cos its illigal(never needed more than that). why does the system want us to stay away from not alchohol. or ex or coke or xcids but from these 2 things specially. and isnt it a fact that only these 2 are natural and the rest r man made ?

u think u can escape the earth by letting others rott in it while u chill away , and u thought u would make a come back ? nopes i dont think so, things will be proven wrong, scientific laws wil be broken, and then ur head will crack, cos u will be too late to think anything. didnt u ever notice the time was tickin from its discovery.
more than anyone else i would love to be corrected myself ? can u answer me something ?? how come there is so many earthquakes and what in the world a .living dinosaur doing in africa ? in 2006 ?? how ?? ne1 heard of volcanos ??

i would like things like BBC CNN to clear these factors which could everntualy lead many people to a lot of conclusions otherwise.

once again sorry if i offended anyone, i am very sorry again

[edit on 18-7-2006 by faran69]

I read your post and read it again, and I'm sorry to say that I have no idea what you're trying to say.

Maybe you could write out your words and use proper Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation? Then you could maybe elaborate how drugs or wars relate to "living dinosaurs" or even if you can draw a line between the amount of earthquakes, volcanoes and the topic at hand - Mokele-Mbembe, it could help me understand what you're trying to say...?

I have heard of this creature previously to subscribing to the ATS forums and in my humble opinion this is nothing more than a myth mirroring the Loch Ness monster.
Evidence of Nessie and the M.M. is non existent irrespective of whatever vague theories or photographic/ photoshopped footage is presented.
Surely over time these fanciful mythical creatures will be consigned to the folklore of their various nations (if not already in the studies of crypto/zoologists) and like the minotaur just become another fanciful fairytale of the past.

the rports ive read said it has evolved its smaller thean sauropods back in the dino day and the males are reported to have a quill or horn on their head i dont remember the old sauropods having quills and also their more aquatic then their sauropod ancestors

Faust is correct. The Mokele Mbembe film footage was on the tv show That's Incredible. I remember it very clearly and would relate the account over the years to my friends. It is exactly as Faust describes, I remember the head as being serpentine in appearance. There is nothing in the jungle that I have ever seen before that comes close to the creature in the film footage. I cant for the life of me figure out why this was never seen or shown again since that first airing.
The creature apparently loves to eat of a plant called the Molumbo plant and doesnt like hippos as the natives have observed the MM drive out hippos from where it eats.
Consider too the Likuala Swamp has over 54,000 square miles of unexplored territory and creature like the MM could easily exist there with little contact with man. The natives claim lengths of 50 foot crocs living there as well.
There is an airial photo taken by a Belgian helicoptor pilot Remy Vanlaird,who while flying over an area of the Congo shot a photo of a 50 foot python. He claims the head rose 10 feet in the air as if to strike at the helicoptor. The photo was analysed and judged to be authentic in terms of subject and size.
After seeing the MM footage on That's Incredible I have no doubt that the MM exists.